


Beskar Heart: A Mandalorian Tale (A memoir by Turhaya Hundteth)

by The Corellian Pirate (Turhaya_Hundteth)



Series: Beskar Heart [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adult Content, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Blood and Violence, Bloodlust, Bloodshed, Casual Sex, Cultural Differences, Dark Comedy, Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Easter Eggs, Easter Eggs - Star Wars, Easter Eggs - Western Movies, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fanfiction, Fiction, Fist Fights, Heartbreak, Helmetless Din Djarin, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Literary References & Allusions, Mandalorian, Mando, Marriage, Mild Sexual Content, My First Fanfic, POV Multiple, Pain, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Post-The Mandalorian (Season 1), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship(s), Resol'nare, Revenge, Self-Destruction, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Star Wars Sex Jokes, Violence, Western Movie References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 48,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23610412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turhaya_Hundteth/pseuds/The%20Corellian%20Pirate
Summary: Cara took a swig of spotchka and put her feet up. The Mando’s stories were always good, but one that had managed to change the stoic bastard by his own admission? This one should be great. Maybe it would explain why he had suddenly shown up after four weeks, when she had already presumed him dead? It had certainly better explain why a blood-drinker had joined their crew, and why Din Djarin had made a deal with savage outlaws.Following from the end of The Mandalorian Season 1, Din Djarin continues his journey sometime after the showdown with Moff Gideon on Nevarro. With the baby now entrusted to Cara Dune, his flight from danger goes horribly wrong. Stranded with a savage stranger, the Mandalorian must find a way to get to Cara and the child before Gideon and his men kill them all. If the bounty hunter is successful, it will only be the first challenge in a series of many. Every new obstacle would require an odd assortment of allies to ensure he makes it out alive. Based on the unexpected events which had been happening lately, his chances of survival would be slim. Death had been showing up far too often, and if it finally claimed Din Djarin, it would also come for the kid.
Relationships: Undisclosed Relationship(s)
Series: Beskar Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707496
Comments: 22
Kudos: 34





	1. Part One: The Ballad of a Sad Old Dog (Ch. 1 - The Meeting)

**Author's Note:**

> The Warning:
> 
> The Mandalorian warns this is an adult’s story of a gunslinger’s journey, and contains descriptions of violence and bloodshed.  
>   
> The Pirate said it is also littered with swearing and colourful language.  
>   
> The Triggerman needed to point out that there are adult themes, including sexual content and drug use.  
>   
> The Dropper cautions against spoilers for The Mandalorian (Season 1).  
>   
> The General just hopes you liked the Star Wars movies.  
>   
> I couldn’t really understand what the Wookiee said…

# Part One: The Ballad of a Sad Old Dog

_“Will ye not stay the night with us, gunslinger? Sunset comes apace, and it’s been long since you and yours spent the night beneath a roof, I’ll warrant.”_

_– The Dark Tower 3: The Wastelands (Stephen King)_

### The Meeting

The _Razor Crest’s_ sirens blared as it shot across the stars. The port-side engine of the Mandalorian’s spaceship had just taken another hit.

As Din Djarin engaged the hyperdrive, the pursuing ship fired a parting shot. The blast missed the engine, but it hit the deflector shield just enough to affect the Crest’s trajectory as it jumped. 

He didn’t realise it yet, but the bounty hunter was knocked completely off course.

The ship’s sirens started again. This time, it was the navigation system which was flashing red with warning.

The Crest was headed straight into a gravity well.

As a wave of horror threatened to overtake him, he numbly started the process to exit hyperspace.

Death was coming.

Luck. What greeted the Crest wasn’t a gravity well. It was a planet, but he had come out of hyperspace right on top of it. The landing thrusters came to life...

But it was too late.

The last thing he saw was trees, before the small prison ship went into the ground like a missile.

That was four weeks ago.

***

Cara Dune, the Dropper from Alderaan, looked at the baby. His frightened little green face gazed up at her.

Shit. She had promised Din Djarin she would look after the kid. Hell, she would look after him even if she hadn’t promised. There was no way she would let those damn Imps get their hands on the adorable little squirt. 

But now it looked like the Mandalorian was dead. It had been a long time. Four weeks. She assumed the worst.

Cara’s speeder bike tore across the desert with three Imps in pursuit. She fired her blaster behind her and caught one, sending him off his ride. The Imps fired. Cara dodged. She lobbed a thermal detonator over her shoulder. It hit the remaining two marks. Her years as a shock trooper made it look too easy.

Ahead on the horizon... Dune saw something that made her hit the brakes...

It was the _Razor Crest_.

Was the Mando still alive? Cara had to know. After a quick glance at the child, she hit the throttle. She pulled up at the ship as the ramp lowered. She heard boot steps – _could it be?_

But it was not Din Djarin who appeared. It was a woman. A Corellian Pirate.

Cara took in the stranger’s appearance. She was wearing dirty, old workman’s pants, and an insolent look on her face. The leather vest and wrist tattoos were a dead giveaway to her outlaw status. Dune counted the weapons – she could see five. The Dropper’s blaster was out in a flash, and she scooped up the kid protectively with her free hand. _“_ _Jeboe'i!”_ she called. It meant ‘thief’ in the savage’s own language. “Pirate! Did you kill the Mando?!”

The Pirate woman said nothing and cocked an eyebrow.

 _“Did you kill him?!”_ Cara demanded, charging up the ramp.

“No.”

 _“Then where is he?!”._ The blaster muzzle met temple.

“Out looking for you!” the Pirate didn’t look all that afraid of the Dropper, just irritated.

“He’s…. what?”

“Here. Looking for you, _Chumani_.”

“He’s _alive_?”

Despite the situation, Dune registered her own sweeping relief at the news. The crafty bastard! She should have known. If he was alive, where was he, and why was this Pirate woman on his ship? “If he’s not here and you are, then that can only mean one thing – you’re stealing his ship!” Cara concluded, and she struck the Pirate with the butt of her blaster heavily across the cheek, knocking the strange woman to the ground.

“STOP!”

Cara spun around. This time, it _was_ Din Djarin.

Pirate almost forgotten, she ran to him with the kid and hugged him. For a moment the three of them stood, hugged, and laughed. It was beautiful when the Mando and the baby saw each other. The baby cooed and giggled. The Mando was happy. _There was hope again!_

When Cara’s attention returned to the Crest, she saw the Pirate sitting on the floor trying to wipe the worst of the blood away. “Why did you stop me? She’s probably trying to steal your ship.” she said to Din.

“No, she isn’t.”

“How can you be sure? She’s a Pirate. It’s what they do. As _you_ would say, _‘it’s in her nature’_.”

“I’m sure because she’s crew.”

“Crew?!” Cara said incredulously “I am not flying with _that_! Have you seen her ink? She’s a damned bomber. She blows people up for fun! They’re crazy!”

“Get inside and I’ll explain. Watch what you say to her.”

***  
  
  


Inside the ship, the four of them sat in silence.

Well, not the baby. The kid had his favourite toy back – the control knob - and was gurgling away happily in his carrier.

Still, nobody was doing any talking.

To Cara, the Crest looked different. The Mando was different too. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something had happened in their time apart. The Pirate was sitting quietly, looking back at her. Bruised swelling had partially closed her eye. This stranger looked like the worst kind of gutter trash imaginable.

“So, is anyone going to explain any of this? Why are we running with a blood-drinker?” said Cara.

The Pirate glared, stood, and said “Bucket Brain can explain. You’re _his_ friend. It’s _his_ duty.” then inexplicably left.

 _“What are you thinking?!”_ said Cara to the Mando as the woman departed “Running with a Pirate? Couldn’t you find anyone else? Why are you letting her walk around the ship alone? She’ll strip us bare until we’re floating home!”

“There’s no one better.”

“What the hell happened to you anyway? Four weeks? No contact?” Cara was on her feet now, pacing and storming. “I thought you were dead! After everything we’ve been through! How could you leave _him_ for that long?! Urrrrrggh!!” she punched the wall.

The Pirate reappeared with “You knocked?” She was carrying a cup, a large flagon, and a strange cylinder with a thin tube protruding from one end. She placed it all in front of the Mando.

“Why are you here?” Cara demanded. Din’s silence had run her patience too far.

When the Pirate spoke, it was not in reply to Cara, but to the Mando “Show her.”

Din Djarin moved his sleeve and pulled down his glove to show the skin on his wrist where a tattoo could be seen – Corellian Hound teeth.

“ _You clanned up with Pirates_?” Cara was so floored, she forgot to be angry for a second. But the anger returned quickly, and Dune’s blaster was out “You’re not him! Who are you?! Din Djarin would never run war crew with Pirates!”

The Pirate spoke to the Mando again “Prove it.”

Din said “On Nevarro, I was dying. You wanted to take off my helmet to save my life. I wouldn’t let you. Only you, me, Karga and the kid were there. IG-11 saved me. The covert was destroyed, all except the Armourer. I received my signet and jetpack that day.”

Cara’s blaster arm dropped to her side briefly as she said “Then it is you. But _why?”._ But before the Mandalorian could explain, the blaster was back again, this time pointed towards the Pirate. Cara spat _“Don’t touch him!”._ The strange woman had gone to pick up the kid.

The Pirate simply rolled her eyes, as Din said “Cara, will you please put the blaster away?”

Reluctantly, Cara holstered. She sat and hissed in a whisper “They drink blood, you know. She could eat him alive.”

“No, she won’t.” said Din.

The Pirate cut in “This woman is your best friend. Put her out of her misery and get going with the story.” to Cara she added “Spotchka. Brewed it myself. He said it was your favourite.”

The stranger went to leave, child in arms, and said over her retreating shoulder to Din Djarin “She hits much harder than you do. I’d make it quick if I were you. _Time to turn them over or fold, Mando_.”

With that cryptic remark, the Pirate left with the baby and did not return.

Din poured a cup of spotchka for Cara, then unscrewed the lid of the cylinder. He filled the cylinder with drink, then replaced the lid which had the thin tube running through the middle of it. He carefully put the tube under his visor. Cara was amazed. He was drinking in front of her.

“Spotchka’s not poisoned.” he said.

Cara looked at him doubtfully but drank anyway “Wow, this packs a punch…”

“Pirates know their booze.”

His tone. The slightly cocky, yet cold way he said it. It really was him.

The Dropper sat back and said “Well?”

“She was right about one thing. You are my best friend and deserve the whole truth in as much detail as I can give. I owe you for everything you’ve done for me and the kid. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Ok, so you definitely are Din Djarin. I was worried there for a minute. But… running with _Pirates_?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll need to start from the beginning. But we have plenty of time. And good spotchka.” After a pause “…It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too. Weird drinking with you. Where’d you get that cup?”

“From her.” Cara looked at him sceptically, and he went on “I know. I’ve been through a lot. I don’t know if I’ve changed, but I think I’ve grown. Settle in and I’ll tell you.”

Cara took a long swig and put her feet up. The Mando’s stories were always good, but one that had managed to _change_ the stoic bastard by his own admission?

This one should be _great_.


	2. The Pirate

###  The Pirate

As soon as the strange woman walked in the door of the unfamiliar building, Din slipped the blaster from her holster and placed it firmly to her temple. She froze and put her hands up slowly.

The Mandalorian demanded _“Did you remove my helmet?! Did you?!!”_

“I would never remove your helmet. I didn’t even do it to save your life. You can thank me later.”

“Who are you? Where am I? Why am I naked?!”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Din struggled for a moment and then recalled “The Crest. It... I... crashed.”

“Where did you wake up?”

“On a med bed.”

“Correct. That crash was _five days ago_. The reason you’re naked is the same reason the lower half of you doesn’t smell like a Tauntaun: I’ve kept you clean and treated you as best I could. I had to wait for you to wake up to see if that crash had scrambled your circuits.”

He was reminded of IG-11 “…. Thank you.”  
  


The woman continued “If you want the rest answered, I suggest you put your clothes on first. They’re in the room over there. Check for head wounds while you’re at it. You can take my blaster with you, if it makes you feel better. I’ll make tea _._ ”

Her hands had started to drop. By way of reply, he pressed the blaster into her head.

She said bluntly “Or you can stand here and make small talk with your dick out.”

He lowered the blaster and retired to put on his clothes in private.

The room was small and made of wood. It contained nothing but a large, rough-made wooden bed covered in animal pelts, a wall mounted viewer, and what appeared to be an old Imperial footlocker. The window overlooked an incredible forest valley that sloped away down to a river.

He removed his helmet and examined himself in the large viewer hanging on the wall. The helmet had largely protected his head, but he had no idea how she had managed to stop him drowning in his own vomit or suffocating. His nose had been broken (again) and was filled with dried blood. The vomit was stuck to the inside of the helmet.

He grabbed the towel and water flask she had left for him on the bed and began the task of cleaning up. His face looked like his own. His body, however, was unfamiliar. Thin, weak, and battered. Somehow much older. There were tools and cleaners on the bed too. He turned his attention to repairing the helmet next. The smell was revolting.

Din suspected from the pain that his left shoulder had been dislocated, and both his ankles were black with bruising. Some of his knuckles seemed out of shape and stiff. His body was covered in cuts and bruises. All wounds were clean and well dressed, but some were quite deep. Some had been stitched with a thread of some kind. He must have lost a lot of blood.

He had been cared for, albeit in an archaic way. He owed her an apology. However, he was still suspicious. The Imp locker was not a good sign.

The work done, he returned to the main room. It was a combined kitchen and work area, littered with food, weapons, and an assortment of various ship parts and tools. The room, as with the rest of the house, appeared to be made entirely of rough wood.

Along one wall was the med bed he had woken on. In the centre was a long wooden worktable lined on either side by two wooden benches covered in animal pelts. The woman was sitting there. A stranger.

She was short and had the physique typical of someone who was once fit in their youth, but who had softened over the years. The uneven sound of her gait as she had walked around earlier told him she had a slight limp, probably from an old injury. She was wearing a simple black undershirt, leather vest, and workman’s pants. Tattoos ran around her wrists. He couldn’t quite place her race, affiliation, or accent yet.

He studied her face. She was not beautiful, but there was nothing particularly unattractive about her either. The lines on her skin and grey hairs at her temples told the truth, against the lie of her youthful features. She had seen some years. Faint scars lined her face. Dark circles marked her pale skin under the eyes. Five days of playing nursemaid had clearly taken its toll.

“Sit.” she said motioning to the table across from her.

After a moment’s hesitation, but with the confidence his clothes now afforded, he obliged. He placed her blaster on the table. She took it after her own moment of hesitation, slipping it back in its holster.

In front of the place she had indicated for him to sit was a tall metal cup with a screw top lid, and long thin tube protruding from the centre of the lid. “It’s for you - keep it.” she said “You should be able to get the drink tube under the helmet without having to remove it. If it’s too snug anywhere I can modify it tonight. Saves me sending you to your room. Might make a nice change for you to be able to take tea in company.”

“Thank you. That’s…. very considerate.” He thought of Kuiil. “I’ve never seen one of these cups before.”

She cocked an eyebrow and said flatly “They’re designed for children who can’t drink without spilling.”

“Well, I haven’t drunk tea in the company of anyone since I _was_ a child.” He took a sip. The tea was warm and welcome, and he said “This is a first. Thank you. I think I also owe you an apology.”

This made her smile. It was almost pretty. He wondered why she was so unfazed by him, until he remembered she had seen him naked for the past five days.

“Want your questions answered now?” she asked.

Straight to the point. He approved. “Please.”

“You thought you were course-set into a gravity well, which I can only assume you didn’t mean to do?” she began.

“Correct. Still doesn’t tell me where I am.”

“It doesn’t have a name, because it never existed on record. It’s a small moon I found by accident a couple of years ago. When I hacked central systems to confirm it was undiscovered, I marked the spot as a gravity well on the star charts so no one would come here. There’s no other intelligent, sentient life. Just you and me, and my two hounds. Ton of wildlife. Some not so friendly. When I come here, I just say I’m going ‘off map’. So, Offmap, I guess.”

He was not sure he liked the sound of being stranded in a place no one knew existed.

“And _you_?” he said.

“That’s a little more complicated. You’re a Guild member.”

“I’m not working for the Guild right now. What are you wanted for?”

“Assault. Robbery. Ship jacking. Jailbreaking. Civil revolt….”

His blaster was out of his holster like lightning, but so was hers. They stood across the table aimed at each other’s face. The tension almost froze the air solid.

“Jailbreaking? Hacking central data to change star charts? That stolen Imp locker? You’re a _fucking Pirate!_ ” he spat in angry disgust. He nodded towards her outstretched wrist “I should have recognised the ink: You’re a bomber, and _civil revolt_ is just another name for terrorism.”

Sighing, she holstered her blaster and sat down. After a few seconds, he also sat down, but did not lower his own blaster. He knew better: Corellians had a reputation for shooting first.

“You think you know who I am and want to treat me like an asshole….”

“I know what you are. You’re an Old Clan Corellian Pirate. _You are_ an asshole.”

“All correct.” she said.

He continued “Vagrants. Outlaws. Off grid, backwards savages. When you’re not stealing anything you can get your hands on, you’re fighting, drinking or fucking your own cousins.”

Din leaned across the table and used the muzzle of his blaster to move her head so he could see behind her ear. Through the dark hair, small snippets of black were visible on the white scalp - her head was tattooed too. “How much ink do you have? How many innocent people have you blown up just to strip a ship for parts?”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before, and most of it grossly misinformed.”

_“How many innocent people have you blown up? Stop fucking around and answer the question!”_

Coldly she said “None. Every one of these tattoos? All Empire. All ‘blood for blood’. You don’t like me? _I don’t like you either_. It’s your fault we’re stuck here!”

“Stuck here? What do you mean?”

“You crashed your ship into my hangar!”

 _“What have you done to my ship?”_ he snapped. He was back on his feet. _“If it’s stripped….”_ He jammed the muzzle of his blaster to her head again, and she glared up at him.

“I haven’t done anything to your precious ship. I’m not a dirty little Jawa, you know. It was probably a pile of crap before you wrecked it…”

He hit her with the stock of the blaster across the cheek, and she winced, but continued without acknowledging it.

“Listen, _asshole!_ If anyone should be shooting now it should be _me!_ ” her voice was not shrill, loud or hysterical. Nor was it boisterous and unhinged as he had expected. It wasn’t even challenging and smooth like Cara’s. It was a low, angry growl like you would expect from a threatened old street dog.

She growled on “ _I don’t have a ship either, thanks to your fucking inability to fly straight!_ You say you know Pirates, mate? You know Corellisi? Well, you should know how much _I love that bloody ship!_ Half my hangar and gear is wrecked, _and_ you took out the long-range coms tower, so I can’t send out a signal for help!”

In his anger and suspicion, he had forgotten his injuries and ignored the pain. Five days without movement, the strain of the damage, and the lack of food and water, hit him in a wave of nausea. This, on top of the realisation that he was stranded with a blood-drinker, caused his head to spin and hammer. He thought for a moment he might fill the helmet with vomit again.

She looked at him while he shifted uneasily and said “Now sit and drink your tea before you fall over. You can apologise later.”

He complied but did not lower his blaster.

She said “You’re in no shape to do anything. I’m no youngling. _Everything_ here is broken, thanks to your brilliant navigational skills.” She cocked an accusing eyebrow, then added unexpectedly “But we’re not out of hope yet.”

The Corellian picked up her mug and drank, and her gaze remained firmly on the Mandalorian. As a sign that he was willing to listen to what she had to say, he also drank with his free hand, although he still did not lower his blaster.

She continued “This place has everything we need to survive, and no one to give us trouble. Yet. Now that I don’t have to look after _you_ , I can start assessing the damage you caused. The defence systems are thankfully all working, and the surface coms are good too.

So, we’re stuck, but we won’t die right now. That is if we don’t bloody well kill each other first. Our only options are to wait for someone to help us, or figure out a way off this rock, and we’re not going to do that sitting here with our finger on the fucking trigger.”

“How long to wait?”

“I’m not sure. Weeks. Maybe months.”

“Not good enough. I need to get going now. It’s a matter of life or death.”

With heavy sarcasm “Aren’t they all?”. It earned her an air-jab with the blaster. Rolling her eyes, she said “Fine. Come to the hangar then. Bring your tea.”

***

It was a disaster. The Crest had smashed into the hangar at full force, and it looked like a bomb site.

“What the….?” He was rigid with shock.

He looked at her. She was still looking mournfully at the mess. He holstered.

She started talking quietly, not taking her eyes off the rubble “I know who you are. That much beskar? The Razor Crest? You can only be Din Djarin. Even out here I’ve heard that name. I like to keep my ear to the ground anywhere the Guild likes to walk. Heard all about that shit storm you, Karga, and the Dropper created on Nevarro.”

“You may be grossly misinformed.”

She looked at him “Maybe, but now you’ve brought the heat here. The longer we stay, the greater the risk.”

He challenged her “I thought this was Offmap? That it was safe?”

“It is for now, but what if they find you some way we haven’t even thought of? Imps always have cutting edge tech. My defences are good, but they’re not _that_ good. We’re in this Rancor shit together, Mando, like it or not. Let’s figure out how to make something work.”

He extended his hand “Din Djarin. Keep your hands off my stuff, and I’ll keep the blaster holstered.”

She took his hand “Tur Hundteth. Let’s go back to the kitchen. This shit fight is depressing me...”

_He had to get off this fucking rock._


	3. The Misinformed

### The Misinformed

The exertion had left the Mandalorian feeling ill.

The Pirate sat him outside in the sunshine with more tea while she made a fire, rather than retire to the kitchen. He needed to concede to the fact he was still a recovering patient. His sprained ankles throbbed and stabbed from the short distance to the hangar and back, and everything else ached and protested too.

As they talked, his mistrust of her eased slightly. It seemed a lot of her pirating days were over, and she had enough sense to settle into a lonely retirement she seemed to think of as a cathartic necessity. He would not trust her, but he resolved not to get his blaster out unless he had to.

He observed her as she went about her business, throwing logs on the fire, talking aimlessly, and (alarmingly for so early in the day) occasionally swigging from a bottle he suspected contained hard liquor. The Pirate bomber had none of the airs and graces of ladies from places like Coruscant. Instead she moved, sat, and held herself in the rough-and-tumble way of a girl raised in a family full of boys. He noticed a morbid sense of dark humour that can only be gained from battle. Din guessed that she had seen a fair amount of action, and he had little doubt that she sported a significant amount of ink.

Tur spoke to him in a manner he was not used to from a woman. She swore frequently and made crass jokes that would make half the Guild blush. She also had no problem bossing him around as she checked his injuries, a trait he found highly aggravating.

Two Corellian Hounds were kept on Offmap for hunting, and Tur was affectionate with them. She explained they had been introduced to his smell while he was still out from the crash and were trained not to go near him. Not that they would attack without command, but in case they got excited and played roughly with him in his injured state.

The Mandalorian was impressed with their discipline, and marvelled that anyone so undisciplined could be their owner.

“It’s actually ‘Turhaya’, but everyone calls me Tur.”

“And ‘Hundteth’? Like hound teeth?”

“Exactly.” she looked pleasantly surprised “Dog Tooth Clan. Dok’ prek arn’da ten?”

He understood the phrase in Olys Corellisi - _Doko prek anuda ten?_ _Can you speak this language?_ \- but the accent was so thick that he nearly missed it “Not really. Just enough to do business, and I’ve never heard it spoken like _that_.”

“Means you’ve never met Old Clan before.”

“Only once. He spoke Basic. I couldn’t understand that either because of the accent. You don’t seem to have much of one.”

“I’ve travelled a lot, but Clan can make themselves understood when they choose to. It’s just better for business when they’re not.” she tried to smile broadly, but it hurt her cheek, so she instead grimaced and said “Damn, you got me a good one.”

Inexplicably she was still smiling, almost appreciatively, as if in some strange admiration of the shot he had landed on her.

“Why did you let me treat you that way? I haven’t even said sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? I destroyed your ship and hangar and stranded you here in this… place….” he looked at the wooden cabin from the outside, and asked “What is this place anyway?”

“My cabin. My home. Built it by hand.” she said with a slight smile.

“Nice work. Who does the second room belong to?”

“My brother, Bera. He prefers it to slumming it with the campers when he comes here. He’s got status, so he’s used to a bit more luxury. Bera’s the Clan leader.”

“Your brother is an Old Clan leader? You’re connected then. Is that why you have a house and not a tent?”

“Nope. Learnt how from Ewoks. Liked it there. Got a taste for softer living.”

“Ewoks?” The derision in his voice was unmistakable.

“Hey, those fuzzy little bastards are smarter than people give them credit for. Where do you think I learned to put in natural stitching?”

“Ewok stitches?” he said bemusedly, feeling a wound under his clothes.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with those savage buggers. They’re funny. Blood thirsty, but adorable. Exceptional trackers. Way too horny though…. Little leg humpers.”

He chuckled for a bit. “You never answered. Why did you let me treat you like that? I’m sorry I did. You’re right about one thing: we don’t have any choice but to work together, and you did save my life.”

“I’m used it.”

“Being beaten with a blaster?”

“Yeah. Yelled at. Kicked out. Denied passage. Spat on. Cut up. Locked up. Chased down. I’ve been beaten up more times than I can count. Imps fucking hate me. Hell, one bloke on Tatooine ran me over with a speeder bike once just for fun.” she concluded far too lightly.

“That’s…. horrible.”

“It’s what we’re used to. People hate pirates as it is. Clan have been thrown in a container with other assholes who just like to steal stuff, and outsiders can’t tell difference. We don’t exactly make the pages of the history books. Most people don’t even know we exist.”

“Yet you engage in piracy?”

“Technically, by law, yes. But we only attack those who attack us. We follow our Code to the letter. We don’t attack to steal. The fact we like to salvage a ship once it’s dead, makes the act piracy.”

“What else do you call taking stuff that doesn’t belong to you?”

“A wild animal doesn’t belong to you, but when you need to kill one to eat, don’t you try and use every bit of the carcass? Or would you leave good meat to rot?”

“You have a point.”

“No use leaving it to become space junk when the galaxy is full of hungry mouths to feed.”

“Pirate mouths?”

“Not only. We do what we can. The stars are littered with foundlings, you know.”

As it happened, he did.

***

The talk continued into the evening. She made broth and warned him she had added local potent herbs to ease his pain.

He did not feel comfortable being under the influence of drugs around her: he still did not trust her. She decided to dose up herself too, not only as an act of solidarity, but because she had ‘spent five long days and nights awake, wiping his ass, and could do with a good sleep’. The herbs worked. He was in less pain, felt better, and was clearly not dying from poison. It also helped him feel less embarrassed about having his ass wiped for him and loosened his tongue.

It was in this way that the Corellian learned about the kid, and the truth to the rumours from Nevarro. In the telling of his story, he needed to speak of the covert. While it was painful, he couldn’t help but notice she didn’t ask the usual stupid questions, only shrewd ones. She seemed to know quite a lot about his Creed already and was unashamedly curious about the topic.

When he told the story of the Mudhorn, she was full of scorn for what she saw as the unnecessary killing of an innocent animal (a mother) and her egg for nothing more than a snack. Stupid Jawas. The fight with the beast itself was a different matter, and Tur hung on every word. When he got to the part where the kid saved him, she listened intently. Curiously, she seemed less in awe of the miraculous feat of the child, than she did at his description of his futile stand against the beast with his blade.

She had touched the signet, examining it, and tracing the skull’s shape lightly with her finger as he spoke of his discovery that the covert had been destroyed. When his voice faltered at one point and he sat with his head bowed, she reached over with her hand and placed it on top of the helmet as if to console him.

He wrapped up with Gideon, his flight from danger, and his concerns for his child. He sat in thoughtful (or was it just stoned?) silence for a while, before realising she was waiting to be invited to talk.

Din would learn how grossly misinformed he had been about Clan Pirates, as he asked “What’s your story?”


	4. The Old Clan

### The Old Clan

Technically, the indigenous and itinerant Clans from the Corellian system were gypsies, not pirates. Not many people knew this, because no one cared. History is written by the victorious, and while they sing about both hero and villain alike, there are not many who will sing about those who don’t matter.

Their habit of looting from the dead earned them the pirate association many hundreds of years ago, and Clan considered themselves ‘proper Pirates’, as opposed to more modern criminal factions who adopt the pirate name. They were not spice runners, smugglers or thieves. They were both a unique breed of outlaw, and a different type of Corellian.

Simple and rugged folk, they thought themselves. People who obey natural ways and respect its balances, living as simply and sustainably as practical. Their old tribal religion formed the basis of their Code, which they upheld as absolute law. They just happened to like to have a good time. Others don’t see it that way. Most people see lawless, inked-up, criminals. Simpletons, drunks, philanderers, scavengers and barbarians. Archaic and naive because of their belief in ancestor gods and life beyond death. Back water nothings.

Above all, they were viewed as unhinged, blood-drinking savages.

Clan spoke both _Olys Corellisi_ (Old Corellian) and Basic, but they spoke in an accent so thick it may as well have been another dialect. Not they _couldn’t_ make themselves understood. It was easier to negotiate business or speak privately when nobody else could be quite sure what was being said.

Old Clan were not welcome in most space ports but tended to spend most of their time in the middle of nowhere anyway, camped in the wilderness. This preference for natural surrounds was central to their way of life. They loved isolated campfires, with simple food and plenty of drink. Despite their traditional ways, they were also skilled in tech, coding, mechanics and piloting like most Corellians. A large Clan could strip a ship faster than anyone. What others viewed as theft and pillaging, they viewed as recycling and compensation for previous wrongs. They only took from fallen enemies, or salvaged unwanted refuse. What they didn’t use, they sold, traded, or donated. They saw it as honourable to protect the innocent from both tyranny and poverty.

Nobody knew how they did it, but Clan had ways of communicating with each other that had never been detected. No one, not even the Empire (much to their annoyance), had ever been able to intercept a Pirate signal. If anyone ever did, they’d never be able to decode it.

Yes, they drank. Yes, they scavenged. Yes, they hated authority. They broke the law, fornicated, and fought. They were savage, but their motivations were not as they appeared, and they were more than most people gave them credit for.

Surprisingly, unlike most Corellians (and despite their religious tendencies) they were not superstitious. Planning was wise. Luck was for the gullible. Something as minor as belief in “luck” created clear cultural distinctions between Old Clan and urban Corellians.

Urban fashions were considered by Clan as being too focused on appearance. Aesthetic was second to usefulness, and clothing should always be in service of the wearer. Scavenged or custom-made survival wear was desirable. Munitions packs or belts were a must. Always plan ahead.

Where a Coronet scum rat might be content with their favourite lucky blaster, a Pirate’s preference for preparation means they carry as many weapons as possible. Heavy blasters and detonators were favoured, and most carried an analogue weapon and a blade (as they understood their equipment’s potential failures, and the necessity for a backup plan).

City Corellians flew by the seat of their pants and trusted to their legendary good luck. Charging straight into a skirmish, they often found themselves in shoot outs or hand to hand combat. They were deadly in small fighters and won dog fights more often than most.

Clan used heavily armoured ships and explosive artillery, as opposed to small fighters. Catch enemies by surprise, crush them with excessive force, and exit quickly. The more brutal the better. Leave nothing to chance.

This love of explosives gave the Empire a golden opportunity to paint them as terrorists. When this reflected poorly on the rest of Corellia, it drew their anger too. The Empire persecuted them.

Fortunately, Pirates are cunning and resourceful, and if one was unlucky enough to be thrown in an Imperial prison, a jail break was probably on the cards. While they were less skilled than genuine warrior societies, they were also less bound by rules and conditioning. Their tactics were often highly inventive as a result.

Pirates were not very good at hand to hand combat, but when they did have to engage, they were ruthless and bloody. Belief in ‘blood for blood’ allowed them the luxury of enjoying the sport of retribution. Avenging the fallen was required by Code, and when doing the gods work, they did it with passion and joy.

When they enemy was right, they _loved_ the kill. _Gylif fho ihn gylif._ 'A life for a life'. This led to one last key difference between Clan and other Corellians. One which made them feared, loathed and mistrusted. 

Blood Striping.

If a Corellian soldier commits a brave enough deed, they are honoured with a military Blood Stripe, which is a length of red material worn on the side of the trousers. It is the highest military honour. Civilised.

Pirates are not civilised. They practised the oldest and foulest form of Blood Stripe, by drinking the blood of their first enemy kill. As their gods demand, they do it with joy.

Because they are free to enjoy it, some of them never stop.


	5. The Burning

### The Burning

Much to Din’s disappointment, the assessment of the hangar was dismal.

The Pirate did all the work, not just because he was injured, but because (as a Corellian) she didn’t think he had the skill to get the job done. She worked, he sat, and they both talked.

He had the _Razor Crest_. She, a Corellian YT-2400 called the _Trivium_. Tur had heavily customised her ship. The light freighter had upgraded dual cannons on two turrets, and thirteen weapon mounts. Three mounts were dedicated to a deflector shield booster, but all remaining ten had heavy artillery attached. Mostly proton bombs, including a ridiculously large bunker buster. Din saw now that he was lucky the whole thing hadn’t exploded into a giant fireball on impact with the Crest.

Made by the Corellian Engineering Corp, the YT-2400 was a favourite choice of outlaws. It had double hull armour and could easily be operated by a single pilot, much like his own ship. Despite being more compact than other YTs, the power core output was almost twice that of the other models, which allowed for oversized engines and other modifications. According to the Pirate, with its upgraded wide bar thrusters, the Triv was as powerful YT as any around. A ‘good, solid, Corellian ship’. The extra bulk meant she was no _Millennium_ _Falcon_ , but she was still fast enough. Besides, the firepower and shield boosters more than made up for it, and the thrusters ‘roared like a bastard’.

The Mandalorian showed his admiration “She’s certainly got it where it counts.”

“ _Had_ it where it _counted_.”

It soon became apparent they did not have enough compatible working parts, or the right tools to make one good ship between them.

They turned their attention to the coms tower. There was still hope, but it had become too dark to work. With no way to generate power in the wrecked hangar, they were forced to retire for the night. He would have to wait another day to know.

Now it was time for more fireside tales. Childhood. Growing up. When he talked about his parents, the droids, and being rescued by the Fighting Corp, she listened without saying a word. At one point, when he could not find any words, Tur touched his steel cheek sadly.

Again, he asked, “What’s your story?”

***

Parents and an older brother. Hunting in the wild. Childhood. It was happy.

Until one day, when she was 16 years old. That was the day her Clan called _Burning Day_.

The Empire had no heart. The camp was burned to ash. All transport and communications were destroyed. The survivors were forced to scatter on foot, and the only way to anywhere was through the wilderness. It would take months to find all the survivors, and they were far too few.

Storm troopers in pursuit, it was a deadly and drawn out game of hide and seek. With no military training, or a functioning blaster, no one could have survived the dangerous expanse of Corellian forest for long. No one, that is, except a Pirate.

Many days later, when the ashes of the dead had long cooled, she appeared outside a small camp.

Alone. 16 years old. Weak, and completely covered in blood. Staggering out of the tree line with nothing but the clothes on her back and a broken blaster. They soon realised not of all the blood was hers. In fact, most of it wasn’t.

Her parents were gone. Her older brother, Bera, somehow survived. They tried to piece back together their family. It didn’t last. She was young, lonely, and miserable. And angry. Very. Very. Angry.

At 17, she left Bera and made her way to Coronet alone. Freedom was a right protected under the Code, and so he respected her wish. If he had known where that freedom would lead, her brother may have thought better of it.

A small, dingy cantina somewhere on the Outer Rim. Gambling for drinking money. 19, and no better off. Probably worse. Seven Storm Troopers walked in. They either ignored her, didn’t see her, or didn’t recognise what the tattoo on her head meant. A Corellian Hound jawbone.

Hounds. Like her: aggressive, boorish, and unremarkable. Yet also loyal, protective, and highly trainable. Their teeth grew back if they lost them, which meant they could take a beating and keep coming back for more. They were also happiest in a pack.

The Imps sat down and started talking amongst themselves. She folded a shitty hand early, and for a moment caught the thread of their conversation. They served on an armoured droid carrier which was currently in orbit. Their bot squad was guarding a small assortment of “prison scum”, _including several Pirates_. Now she was really interested.

Then she heard the words that would ensure her life took another turn for the worse: “We should have killed them all that day…”

Her stomach filled with ice as the cold bile came from their mouths, mocking the dead, laughing, and speaking of horrors that should never be repeated. Burning Day.

_They were there. They had helped perform the fucking deed!_

She knew what she needed to do. She was out of her seat, blasters drawn, before they noticed anything wrong.

The Imps fell, some in mid-reach for their own weapons. Cards, drinks and credits spilled everywhere. The powerful bolts mercilessly tore through armour and flesh, hitting the walls behind them. Blood, rubble and dust sprayed the air. Patrons dived for cover. Smoke, noise and the cooking smell of burning flesh filled the small room. She had laid them all dead.

She ran. People had seen her. It was required by the Code, but also incredibly stupid. As her fire cooled, a sinking feeling settled in. She thought of the droid carrier she knew was somewhere in orbit. A call was placed to her brother for help. Honour demanded it.

She was a young fool, but she learned fast, running on Bera’s crew. Being highly adept at strategy even for a Pirate, she managed to keep herself out of jail for the most part. She ran as many jobs as she could blowing up Empire cruisers and pulling prison breaks.

However, as the years passed, and her record grew, the blood started drawing too much heat. Building with her hands became a reliable alternative to crime. As a Corellian, her services as a ship technician and pilot were as valuable to earning an incoming as her ability to make bombs.

Hunting big game animals also proved lucrative, and she found herself just as adept at killing beast as man. Feeding remote communities by hunting for hire was highly educational and very rewarding.

When she killed, she looted, but most of her spoils were given away freely. She started to cover up her ink, changed her appearance, and tried to remain inconspicuous. She returned to her family more often but was somehow more distant.

Despite her efforts, trouble kept showing up, and eventually the hard choice had to be made. Her warrant sheet was too long, and she was getting far too old for this shit.

After almost a year of exploring uninhabited systems, she found it. Luck. It was the only time she had believed in it. What were the odds of finding a small uncharted moon she could fully protect? Teeming with wildlife, perfect climate, and no locals? Nothing but unspoilt forest in which to hide in?

It was perfect, and it became home. Every defence possible was set up, and every precaution taken. Star charts were hacked to show that a gravity well covered the entire system.

Every now and again she would travel to find work or to join the Clan, but the more she found ways to sustain herself on her private moon, the less she needed to leave. She would never be found by anyone if she didn’t want to. It was the quiet life she had been searching for. A lonely life.


	6. The Hound Tooth and The Helmet

### The Hound Tooth and The Helmet

The coms tower was missing just _one part_ to make it work. Din was so close to getting off this rock, he could almost smell it, and the frustration irritated him as much as his scabbing wounds.

If they waited, the best he could hope for was the Clan to come looking for the Pirate. Given her independent streak and love of solitude, it may be months before they realised something was wrong. He explained why they could not wait, so she resolved to keep trying for an answer.

Her solution, it transpired, was to do nothing. Since all working parts were inventoried and none matched, she would have to come up with an alternative. This meant taking their minds off things for a while, allowing a new idea to form.

They needed meat, so she suggested they go hunting. Well, she would hunt. He could watch. Not exactly the plan he was hoping for, but since he couldn’t think of anything better himself, he agreed.

Thankfully the tiny speeder she used to get around was not in the hangar during the crash. The hounds, a small sled and some camp gear were packed onto the trailer, and they ventured off into the wild. 

***

Din poked aimlessly at the fire with a stick, while he waited for the Pirate to return with water. Their camp was made by the river, not too far from where she said a deer herd was expected to appear. She would hunt first thing in the morning when the animals came to feed.

“Now don’t freak out…” she said as she dropped down in a most un-ladylike way by the fire.

“What?” he was apprehensive. He didn’t like the look on her face, because it clearly told him whatever she was about to say probably _would_ freak him out.

“There’s a wild Akk Dog that comes here sometimes to hunt.”

“What!?”

Akk Dogs are reptilian creatures native to Haruun Kal. The great lizards are known for their tough orange hides, killer claws, and the enormous lidless eyes which are bulbous and armoured. With skins so tough they resisted light sabres, they were exceedingly difficult to kill. As big as a land speeder and surprisingly fast, their jaws and terrifying teeth could crush dura steel.

They were aggressive in the wild, but also highly trainable due to their strong connection with the Force. This made them the favoured animal of the Jedi at one point, and highly desirable on the black market.

The specifics Tur gave about this Akk Dog were interesting. She seemed to think it had been black market and once trained, because it was still wearing a tracking beacon and a shackle. The tracking beacon most likely came from the Hutt cartel. How it ended up on Offmap was anyone’s guess.

Tur looked at her wrist scanner. “He’s miles away now, but just in case he gets close in the morning, I don’t want a beating because I didn’t tell you.” she pointed at him in warning.

“You think I’d hit you?”

“You already have.” she said matter-of-factly. “Once we’re done, we get the carcasses quickly, and get back to the cabin in case the Akk Dog gets the scent of blood. Speaking of dogs….”

The Corellian Hounds had run off to the river earlier, and now returned wet and happy. Tur treated them like children, kissing them on their heads and patting them.

“They’re so ugly.” he accidentally said out loud.

Tur looked at Din critically and said “I thought Mandalorians were better than that? You don’t judge on appearances. You go for function and merit.”

He had to admit “That is true. We see beyond the superficial.”

She turned to her hound and spoke to it like it was a child “So why is the mean old Mando picking on my babies, ey? Is he picking on you? …Oh, no! You’re losing a tooth!”

The Pirate gently pulled out the Hound’s loose tooth, to which Din let out a noise of disgust.

“Calm down.” said Tur “They grow back. Make something nice out of it.” and she threw the tooth to him.

The hound closed its orange eyes lazily in response to the patting, and the Mandalorian had to concede a point to her. As he turned the tooth over in his hand, he thought of the kid and how adorable he was. Kuiil had once said he was too ugly to have been gene farmed. He supposed beauty really was completely subjective after all.

***

The next morning, the hunt went well. The Mando sat in the speeder hidden in the tree line – it was the best seat in the house. The Pirate was hunting on a wide swathe of grass plains, dotted with small clusters of trees. The old silt flat occupied the area between the river and the heavy growth of the forest.

The tiny two-hound sled darted back and forth, and the Pirate took down several deer with a combination of practiced balance, perfect aim, and a blaster rifle.

The males were protective, and they were forced to avoid being taken out by antlers many times. Even when they had taken enough game, and the Pirate had jumped off the sled, a particularly large buck stood in challenge. Its tremendous song rang out and it charged.

Din had a moment of alarm as her rifle jammed, but Tur calmly took out her retractable spear and before he knew it, it was all over. Her hunting knife out, she gutted the big male onto the grass. The hounds enjoyed the discarded organs. She waved for him to bring over the speeder and trailer.

Guts out, it was lighter, but not by much. With difficulty, she managed to heave the male onto the trailer. He wondered how she had gone dragging him from the wrecked _Razor Crest_. Gods, he missed that ship.

They collected the smaller carcasses. He was impressed to learn she had picked them out specifically for their size, weight and fur quality. How she was able to do that while the trampling animals jostled each other, he had no idea, but he supposed it was much like picking out enemies in a shootout: practice, and a good eye.

With the trailer full, there was no room for the hounds. Tur had left them a smaller carcass to compliment the entrails and explained they would make their own way home after feeding.

“What if the Akk Dog comes while they’re here?” he asked.

“They’ll smell it a mile off, and they’re too agile. _We_ on the other hand are not so lucky. On an open flat with no trailer, this junk pile has no worries, but with a full trailer we’ll never outrun it. We should leave.”

***

The rest of the Pirate’s day was spent in blood. Gutting, skinning, and cleaning carcasses. The meat would be dried and stored, and the pelts would be tanned. Tur used every part of the animals she could, including the antlers of the big male which she kept as a gift for her brother.

Din watched the Pirate’s blade work. He wondered how much flesh it had carved in the past, and how much of that flesh had been human.

Eventually, she came back by the fire where he was sitting, the work done and the light fading.

“How are you feeling?” She walked to her usual spot. As she passed by him, she brushed the top of the helmet with one hand.

“Better. Why do you touch my helmet as though I can feel it? Aside from shaking my wiring lose.”

“If your shitty wiring job can’t take a little love tap from me, it’s going to be completely useless when a blaster bolt hits it. Why don’t you let _me_ fix it? I’ll cram it with so much tech, you’ll be able to hear Luke Skywalker’s farts from the other side of the galaxy.”

He was chuckling, so she continued “C’mon. Help me, help you.… I mean, there has to be a way for us to work out how to fix your helmet without breaking the law?”

As she babbled on, he momentarily lost the thread of what she was saying. He only caught the very end of it “…. Can we do it if we close the storm shutters?”

“What?” he started. Either this conversation was taking an unexpected tangent, or he needed to pay more attention.

“If you leave the beskar on the windowsill and then close the shutters, can I come and collect it from outside? I won’t be able to see you at all. Will that break any rules?”

Relief… Din thought about the Pirate’s plan for a moment, trying to see a hole in it. He couldn’t.

“No. Actually. It shouldn’t break any rules… I’ve never thought of anything like this before. Still, I wouldn’t trust anyone with my helmet. You’re at least trapped here with me, so what do I have to lose?”

“Good.” she slapped the back of his head and the display sputtered “Then let’s make this bucket work again.”

***

Tur sat under the bedroom window on a bench seat surrounded by carefully laid out tools and parts. A wearable work lamp was on her head. The helmet was breathtaking. A perfect thing of legend.

Good craftsmanship will always fire up a Corellian’s engines.

It was an honour to even hold it, let alone work on it, and it had not escaped her how difficult it must have been for Din to hand the damned thing over in the first place. She knew he was watching her every move through the small gap he had left in the shutters. Probably with his blaster out.

Tur had always admired Mandalorians. Their skill as warriors, their technology, their strength, and the jetpacks! They were stoic and measured, and they looked after their own. They were loyal and meritorious, and understood the importance of living to a code. For the most part, they hated the Empire. They were nothing short of _cool…_ Except Din. He was a jerk.

“You never answered my question.” he called out the window to her.

“Huh?”

“Why do you touch me, when you know I can’t feel it?”

She stopped working, amused that he was still puzzling over something so insanely simple “People can feel with more than their skin, you stupid Womp Rat.”

The Mando clearly couldn’t think of an answer to that, because the shutters at the window remained silent. Tur grinned. The smug bastard wasn’t as clever as he thought, but she had to concede that being trapped under a helmet all his life had probably stunted his social skills.

She asked “Does it speak to you in a way?”

“…. Yes.”

“Then there’s your answer, Tin...” she laughed “I was almost going to call you Tin Can, but I guess right now you’re not, are you? When was the last time you spoke directly to another person without the lid?”

“IG-11.”

“A fellow _human_ , idiot.”

“Not since…”

 _“I was a child… before I first put it on…”_ she said in a sing-song voice which conveyed the clear message ‘ _you’ve said it so often, I know it word for word’._

“Another first.” he said.

He may have just paid her a weird form of compliment. She grinned at both his attempt at flattery, and the sudden realisation that this was a very big deal for him. Something as basic as speaking directly to another person without technical intervention was an ‘unusual experience’ for Din Djarin.

It was all a complete mind-fuck.

She couldn’t help herself and laughed “I need to stop taking you ‘under the ship’ on this stuff. People will talk.”

“Under the ship? What does that mean?” asked Din.

“When Pirates camp, we set up in circles. Centre is the main fire. Middle circle is the tents and supplies. The outer circle is the ships and sentries.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“When it’s dark and the adults are drunk, all the teens are looking for a bit of action. They sneak out to the outer circle and go into the darkness under one of the ships….”

The chuckle. “Say no more!” he said.

She was also chuckling “Sentry comes along… investigates… next minute there’s teens scattering everywhere with their pants around their ankles.”

He laughed. A full laugh. She stopped laughing. Something about the sound of his laughter caused her stomach to contract. It felt very much like fear, but the next second he had simmered down to his usual chuckle, so she went on.

“Hence trying something new or exotic - or dangerous…” she glanced at the window “…for the first time is classed as ‘going under the ship’.”

***

They were back at the fireside as he tested the helmet. It was a relief to have it back on.

Din had watched nervously from the window at first. As the Pirate continued to work, she appeared to be clearly engrossed in the task at hand (except when she was making crass jokes to fill the silence) and his anxiety had eventually subsided. He had even holstered his blaster.

Considering what a huge internal struggle it had been to part with the helmet, he was pleased with himself for handling the situation so well. The Pirate would never know what a significant moment had been for him, and he had no intention of ever telling her.

“This is _great._ ” he said happily “How did you get the image so clear?”

“Corellian secret.”

“Thank you. It’s brilliant.”

“My pleasure.” Tur said “That thing is a bloody masterpiece. Never thought I’d get to hold one. I’ve wanted to see one up close since I was a kid.”

“You could have taken it off. You had five days to. I never would have known.”

“No way! That would _not_ be right.”

“You’re weird.”

“Fuck off.”

He laughed “It’s just, no one has said that before. _Everyone_ wants the helmet off. Anyone else _would_ have taken it off. Most men want to claim it for a trophy or the value of the beskar. Some are just curious to see what’s underneath. Women…”

“How many have asked you to give it up for them?”

“Many. Cara thinks I’m a fool for not staying with Omera. Dune even wanted to remove it to save my life. She’s a soldier. I thought she of all people would know better.”

“Don’t blame her: she’s your best friend and doesn’t want to see you die.”

“Why didn’t _you_ remove my helmet? Because you don’t think it’s right, or because you didn’t care if I died?” She looked offended. Shit. Din apologised “I’m sorry. That was tactless.”

“I didn’t remove it, because _you_ don’t think it’s right.” Tur said cryptically.

“That’s not your reason. That’s mine.” argued Din.

“Yes, _it is_ my reason. Look - you chose to put it on knowing full well what it meant. You still stick to that commitment?”

“Yes.”

“So, that means you don’t want to take it off.” she explained, providing no explanation at all.

“I don’t want to take it off, but I still don’t follow…”

“It’s so important to you, you’ve poured your whole life into that helmet. Then someone thinks they just have the right to strip it from you? Decide on your behalf what they _think_ is best for you? I’d stab any bastard who tried to take away my life’s work. I’d die for it! I bet on the fact that you would want to die for that helmet too.”

“Thank you. That was well put.”

“It was nothing - All I did is respect your decision. I assumed since you were wearing it, you wanted to _keep_ wearing it. I know what it’s like to live a code that you would die for, and that no one else seems to agree with.”

He nodded “You would have let me die.” It wasn’t a question.

“To honour what you fight for? To respect your life’s work? Yes, I would have let you die.”


	7. The One Shot

### The One Shot

It is said that Corellians have rocket fuel for blood. 

There was a wild look in her eyes, and Din didn’t know whether to be excited or afraid.

“I’ve got a viable idea.” Tur was saying to him, as she slammed the cabin door closed against the wind on her way in “It’s complicated, and potentially suicidal.”

Straight to the point. He approved. “What?”

“I think I might have a way to get a signal off planet.”

His blaster was out. “I thought you said it was impossible with the parts we have?”

Her eyes rolled “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Not this again… It is impossible right now. I need one part to make it work… “

“……Go on, then.”

He slipped the blaster away since pointing it was futile. She was rummaging in a storage container with her back to him. All he could see was her ass in the air.

“I forgot about this…” She emerged from the trunk and threw a very old, very broken, ship tracking beacon on the table.

He pointed out the obvious “This is broken.”

“Yes, but there’s a similar one still functioning _on this rock_.”

“I thought you said there were no other ships here?” he threw at her accusingly. He felt an urge to draw his blaster again. For someone who liked to get to the point, Tur was being aggravatingly reluctant to explain herself.

“It’s not on a ship…” The look on her face told him that he would not like what she was going to say next.

“Go on…”

She steeled herself and said, “It’s the one on the Akk Dog.”

“Shit!” He had risen from his seat. Not in anger, but more of a mild panic.

She gave a gentle, waving hand gesture which said to him - _Please, calmly sit back down._ “The tracker is obsolete, so it took a while for me to think of it. I’ve only ever picked up the signal, but I think the one on the Dog might have similar parts to this one here. If that’s the case, then it may be powerful enough…”

“… to fix the long-range coms tower.” he finished. “Do you think it’s worth the effort?”

“Is the kid?”

“Let’s do it.”

***

The Pirate had been hunting all her life and knew that killing the Akk Dog would require planning, practice and perfection.

Any animal that eats plants needs minimal brain power to find its food. They’re stupid enough to sneak up on if don’t stink like a Bantha. Scavenger animals are even easier – all you need is a bit of dead meat, patience, and a good hiding spot.

Apex predators tend to like live flesh, and they have all the evolutionary advantages to get it. Claws and teeth, strength, speed, heightened senses, and a cunning intelligence.

The best predators can’t be stalked. They know where you are before you do. Can’t outrun them, you often can’t fight them, and they’re usually too crafty for traps.

Their only weakness is their desire to hunt. Predators _love_ to hunt and kill.

That means live bait. Lure it out onto a killing floor and take your shot. It’s a two-person job, because one of those people has got to play the bait.

A predator will stop paying attention to everything else on the hunt, except its prey. When it’s about to strike, that’s when you take the shot.

But you only get _one shot_.

Fuck up, and draw their attention, and the hunter becomes the prey.

***

She had not been wrong about the ‘complicated’ part of her idea.

Din’s head felt like it would split as they went around in a mental circle, trying to get past the gaps in the plan. Gaps which were currently standing between him and the child. The campfire abandoned, they set up in the kitchen and reviewed their notes and maps.

Tur went over it again “We’ll have to shoot it down properly, so we don’t risk damaging the beacon. Can’t just blow it up. _Or disintegrate it._ That hide and those armoured eyes will need some heavy blasting. We’ll have to get close to its territory to lure it out. Problem is, how do we get it from where it lives, to where we need to it to be? Preferably without getting eaten….”

“You’re sure the speeder can’t make the canyon?” Din felt sure it was the way to get the job done.

There was a dried-up section of riverbed which formed a rocky canyon that led from the mountain forest where the Akk Dog lived, down to the grassy silt plain where Tur had killed the deer. It seemed the great lizard used the canyon to travel between the two places. Din thought it seemed like the most logical route and refused to give up on the issue.

“Absolutely sure. Akk Dog knows they way too well, and it’s littered with boulders. Hounds can’t do it either.”

“I thought you had a way to make things work?”

She rolled her eyes. “The first section starting at the top is OK.” she said, pointing to the map projecting from the deck on the table. “But then you get to this long straight section which used to be rapids, where it’s practically a boulder maze, and you just can’t get through.

We could drop in further down here, but it’s too winding for the speeder to enter at speed, and it will mean too long spent in the forest. Every second in the forest risks ploughing into a tree. Even if we did navigate the rest of it, that fucking rubble wall blocking the end of the canyon is going to be a real bitch. I just can’t see how it can be done.”

“You’ll think of something.”

“ _I’ll_ think of something! What about you, Bucket Brain?”

“You’re the planner.”

“ _And you’re the fucking Mando!_ Aren’t you the best humans in the galaxy? Perfect specimens?”

“No.”

“You look disgustingly perfect to me. I’m just the shit people scrape from their boots.”

For someone so brash (and who often gave off the air of being a complete know-it-all) Tur was exceedingly critical of herself. But she seemed not to notice how contradictory this behaviour was. Din guessed that other people had always treated her like dirt, and she had simply followed suit, not knowing any better.

“Why do you talk like that? From where I’m standing, you’re like water.” he said.

“I’m like _water_?”

“Fluid. Adaptable. You can flow. I can’t be like that: I’m more like fire. I only know how to burn.”

“I drink people’s blood for fuck’s sake. You sail around in a jetpack, fucking up Gideon’s TIE fighter _by hand_! Come on! You can do shit I couldn’t dream of!”

“You kept me alive and stitched me _by hand_. You can somehow pick a deer out of a herd based on its pelt. You built all these walls _by hand_.”

The Mando waived behind him indicating a blank section of wooden wall. Tur’s face went strangely blank. She sat expressionless for a moment. Suddenly Din’s visor indicated rapid heart rate. He could see her pupils move as the adrenaline flooded her brain.

“Are you OK?” said Din

“That’s it…” her voice shook, and he could now tell it was with the excitement of a lightning idea.

“What? What’s it?”

“We’re going to use the _fucking walls_ ….”  
  



	8. The Canyon

###  The Canyon

The Mandalorian checked the cam display as he drove. He could see the Pirate standing on the back of the little speeder, fastened by a belted set of waist-straps to the short mast she had attached to the rear upper panel.

“Just like we practised.” she said into the com link.

He had expected to be driving around the mountain forest for a while and was startled when the Akk Dog found them almost immediately. After few seconds of thunderous footfalls, it was charging out at them from the denser forest vegetation. Huge, orange, with gigantic bulbous black eyes, it was easily longer than the little speeder.

The reptile caught sight of them, swung its powerfully muscular tail to help it change direction, and gave chase. It was faster than the Mando had expected. In the rear display, he saw a rusted old shackle on one hind leg, and with a leap of hope, the beacon blinking benignly on its neck.

In this dangerous forest terrain, he could not afford to go full speed. Instead, he stayed just fast enough to keep out of its reach, which meant they were slow enough to avoid crashing into a tree as they dodged their way through the forest.

This toying distance seemed to enrage the gigantic lizard, and it screeched in frustration, trampling everything in its path to get to them.

Powerful claws tore up the ground and vegetation, and a shower of debris was left in its wake. The black, slippery tongue squirmed grotesquely in its mouth. Twice the horrendous tongue thudded wetly against the rear of the speeder, as the great teeth snapped and tried to take the Pirate.

At least they didn’t have to worry about the damn thing losing interest. It wanted them badly.

“Ready?” Tur said through the com link.

“Yes.”

“Then go!”

He swung the speeder towards the canyon. The beast anticipated the move and used their own turning circle against them to lunge. The snapping sound of the razor-sharp teeth next to him was so loud, close and brutal, it made him jump.

For the first time in a long time, the bounty hunter was afraid.

The practiced manoeuvres kept them just out of the reach of its crushing jaws until they hit a section of flat grass. The speeder gained a lead over the open section of ground, then swung hard into the narrow, sloping fissure that led into the canyon.

For a small moment he thought they had lost the Akk Dog seeing only bare rock behind him, but it skidded into the rear cam monitor in plume of dirt, ricocheting off the walls of the narrow canyon entry point in its haste to catch up with its quarry.

As they entered the canyon, the Akk gave ground shaking roar of outrage. The Mando felt it rattle in his chest as it echoed savagely down the desolate landscape at them.

She was right - if he let off the throttle for even a second, they were going to die.

***

She watched the Mando flicking switches. Gravity lift engines whined in response. Tur’s speeder rose to triple the usual height. She may not have been able to build a ship, but the she had put some tricks up her speeder’s sleeve. Side treads extended out from the bodywork, and extra stabilisers kicked into life. Grabbing the strap which secured her to the short mast, she edged over to the right side. She gave no commands this time, relying on trust and preparation to keep them on task. It was time to perform the deadly dance they had worked so hard to perfect. 

The Akk Dog was too close for comfort, and the change in the speeder’s appearance seemed to infuriate the thundering lizard even more. The rapids approached, and the only way to avoid the boulder maze was to go _up the wall._

It was time to see if her smart-ass plan was worth anything.

Standing on the side tread, Tur gripped the straps and lent out as the speeder started to ascend the wall. The course they travelled was exactly as plotted, but the tiny speeder was fighting much, much harder under full throttle.

If she leaned out too far, she risked being decapitated on the rock wall. If she didn’t lean far enough, the speeder would flip. It was only the ballast of her own body weight that was keeping the speeder level enough to travel up the wall and keep it there.

Chancing a quick glance down at Din, who was still arm-wrestling the steering wheel into submission, she pushed and leaned out. The straps pulled mercilessly against her muscles. Tur gritted her teeth and pushed with her legs, praying to the gods that her knees would hold up.

The reptile wove its way through the rocky obstacle course at a faster pace than they had hoped. A mix of swear words were swallowed up by the Akk Dog’s roar, as every tendon and fibre in the Pirate’s body burned.

The speeder shook under her feet as it raced the Akk to the end of the rapids, maintaining a very flimsy lead.

***

As they descended the wall and found the floor of the canyon again, Din took moment to appreciate the small victory. But the dance had only just begun. They dropped height, increased the forward power, and were now headed down the winding course.

“Retract the treads.” she said into the com link. He could hear her adjusting her rigging, and she was breathing heavily - but whether from exertion, or fear, or both, he couldn’t say.

They swerved and turned, him focused on the canyon ahead, and her on the Dog behind. The continual changes in direction let the Dog get closer. The giant black tongue and huge triangular teeth were visible again in the monitor, and the thing seemed to be grinning malevolently.

After all, it was a predator, and it did _love_ to hunt.

He could hear her thumping boot steps as she moved across the rear of the speeder. Rather than going against the ship’s weight, she went with it, in order to help him make the sharp corners at speed.

  
The Akk Dog was too quick and too close. “Get that thing off us, now!” He gave the order this time.

She moved to mast and drew her blaster. It was set to kill, but it would not matter against the reptile’s impenetrable hide and armoured eyes. The beast took a lunge at the left side of the speeder, and the Mando jerked the wheel to the right just in time, almost sending her off balance. At the same time, a terrible, ear-splitting ‘CLACK’ rang out, as two rows of savage teeth narrowly missed the left side panel. The Pirate’s blaster bolt hit it directly in its bulbous eye and bounced. The beast toppled sideways and fell. The Mando was about to sigh with relief when the sound of crashing rock told him the Akk Dog was back on the hunt.

The orange menace gained ground again in the Mando’s rear monitor, but this time he watched as the Pirate took no chances and shot early and rapidly. Despite the fire, it kept snarling and snapping.

Focused on the monitor, he lost track of the canyon ahead and clipped a large rock.

The speeder bumped.

The Pirate fell.

The Mando watched her bounce off the rear panel.

As her body rose uncontrolled into the air again, the Dog sprang. If it took her, they were both dead because she was still attached to the speeder.

Huge teeth closed in on her torso.

He jerked the wheel again.

The waist straps snapped taught. The CLACK of the empty jaws, followed by thumping and swearing as the Pirate fell heavily on the back of the speeder, told him the manoeuvre had succeeded. Mercifully, salvation was around the corner. “On approach” he warned.

They had entered the last leg and he lined up the speeder with the crudely dug, narrow ramp they had built the previous day at the end of the canyon. They would fit. The Akk Dog could not. As the speeder hit the foot of the ramp and started its rocket-like ascent, the furious, snarling lizard was stuck behind them in the canyon’s dead end. 

Twenty sets of knuckles went white, as the tiny craft went sailing off the other end of the ramp.


	9. The Kill

### The Kill

He fired the lift engines again.

After what seemed like far too many of his pounding heartbeats, the speeder bumped heavily down on to the grassy killing floor.

Din slowed the speeder to a stop, and the Pirate jumped off the back. Behind them, the enraged Akk Dog howled as it scrambled its way up the wall at the end of the canyon. They had very little time, so he left her and headed for one of the small clusters of trees which dotted the plain, while she hit the whistle at her shoulder.

The Mandalorian reached his position and stopped the speeder. He uncovered the stationary turret gun that was waiting for him, flicked on the monitors, and watched. It had been lifted from the _Trivium_ and mounted on a tripod. The tripod itself was crudely and quickly made, but the Pirate had customised the display to allow him to zoom and watch several areas of the killing floor at once. Best seat in the house.

The Corellian Hounds had run out of the tree line at the sound of her whistle and were now heeled in perfect formation. He watched as she jumped onto the sled and attached herself.

He watched the canyon and waited. Sharps claws appeared over the edge of the wall first, followed by the snarling head. The rest of the beast slithered over quickly, the tail thrashing angrily over the wall last.

The hounds ran the tiny sled directly across the line of sight of the Akk Dog. They were no match for the angry lizard’s top speed, but they more than made up for it in agility. They doubled and turned causing the orange, snarling head to follow them back and forth, teeth clacking futility.

They worked their way across the field, luring the lizard toward the thickest growth of trees on the forest side. As they reached the tree line, the big Akk Dog (unaware of the hours of patient practice which had gone into this day) made a last lunge. Trees splintered with deafening cracks as the great reptile tumbled into the vegetation and landed in a tangle of branches.

Time. Critical, fleeting time had just been bought.

The Mandalorian watched the hounds make the final turn and run in a direct line from the trees to the river across his line of sight.

One shot.

The great lizard had recovered and lumbered clumsy upright. It spotted the prey running in a straight line towards the river, tantalisingly within reach. Every instinct in the big reptile was on fire, and this time it ran silently, all else fading from existence except the sled.

The Mandalorian aimed and moved the gun slowly. One shot. He breathed. He aimed.

But he was too late.

The Akk Dog knew the line from the trees to the river too well and had gained too quickly. It lunged unexpectedly and snapped, teeth missing by inches. Before he could act, terrible claws followed through, and sent both rider and sled flying helplessly into the air. The hounds (now cut free from the sled and each other) split apart and circled back in retreat. By some miracle, the Akk Dog followed them.

For a moment which felt like a lifetime, he watched her fall. Her small form ploughed with a sickening thud into the ground, sending up an enormous shower of grass and dirt. Fear for her life gripped him in a singular spasm as his mind tried to process what he was seeing.

Through the shock, cut one clear thought: Kill it.

He swung the gun, and the tripod squealed in response. The hounds had almost reached the trees. They were worn out. He only had seconds.

The sound of a big male buck rang out.

The Akk Dog stopped chasing the hounds and froze, leaving them free to find cover. The Mandalorian froze too.

Again, the deer call. The Mando and the Akk Dog both saw the source of the noise together.

His initial sight of the thing which stood on the field made his stomach clench with nausea. It was not a buck. It was a strange, black creature with an odd array of limbs. When he zoomed in on the monitor, he realised with horror what he was seeing.

It was Tur. She was alive. The sight that should have caused him relief, only caused him to lick his dried-out lips with revulsion. Standing, but only just. Leaning on her retractable spear like a crutch with her right arm, the left dangling at an unnatural angle which could only mean a savage dislocation or a break.

Every inch of her was caked thick in black dirt and blood.

Tur was playing the recorded sound of the Akk Dog’s favourite meal.

The beast leapt forward, sending a wave of sod in its wake.

All else faded from its mind except the kill.

All else faded from Din Djarin’s mind except the kill.

Time had slowed to a crawl. Perhaps it had ceased to matter?

The Akk Dog ( _Mudhorn_ ) charged forward throwing up grass and dirt _(thick brown mud)._

Her shoulder was badly damaged ( _his armour compromised_ ), and the spear shook uncontrollably _(his knife... he could barely hold it_ ).

Gambling an already broken body for a beacon _(that stupid egg)._

Death was coming _(death was coming)._

The beast was so intent on snapping the life out of her ( _trampling the life out of him_ ), that it ignored the big gun ( _the small child_ ) that would be its doom.

He swung the gun once more.

Breathe.

Aim.

Fire.

Just in time, the Akk Dog was shot down.

The predator had made its kill.

***

He found her lying on the grass with her eyes closed. He feared the worst. Din brushed the earth off her face, and to his relief, Tur spluttered. Without opening her eyes, she said weakly “Get me out of here. Don’t forget the beacon.”

Shit! What had they done all this for? The beacon! He ran to the carcass and cut it loose. Blinking. Working. He packed it carefully in the speeder.

“Your shoulder - I need to fix it first.”

She was too weak to even attempt to hide her pain and screamed shrilly as he put the shoulder back into its joint. He left her passed out on the soft grass. Her injuries were too great, and he was afraid to move her. Only after he had prepared everything else would he attempt to rouse her and get her on to the trailer.

Before he had seen to the shoulder, Tur had given him instructions. It was just as well, because the effort of getting on to the trailer had caused her to lose consciousness again. Now, he followed her directions without any doubt or hesitation. The journey to the place she had specified had to be made carefully and slowly given her current condition. It gave him plenty of time to think. He had the beacon. He knew how to fix the tower. He could leave.

But that is not _The Way._


	10. The Pools

### The Pools

Din reached their destination not too long before sunset, so before he set up camp, he wandered off in the dwindling light to pick the plants Tur had requested.

Here, at this site, boiling thermal mineral water from the outlets upstream combined with cooler river water and made it possible to bathe in the naturally formed rock pools. She said the water had healing properties, and she had used the same water to wash his own wounds.

He had set up camp and prepared broth by the time she was awake again. Given the circumstances, he figured she wouldn’t mind that the soup was made from Akk Dog meat. Still covered in dirt, one arm in a sling, she dropped a large handful of herbs and several mushrooms into her bowl.

“Do you want some?” Tur offered.

Tempting, but “I probably shouldn’t…”

“Just some of this then.” she held out a smaller handful of herbs “Leave the fungus to the professionals.” he held out his cup and she dropped the herbs in, adding “You earned it.”

They drank their broth in silence and stared at the fire. After a while, he felt the herbs working on himself, and so went over to her and checked her eyes. It seemed her pupils had lost their ability to remain one size.

“Well, I think you’re orbiting Endor. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

***

It had been a long and delicate process to avoid aggravating injuries or causing too much fresh bleeding. Dirt was worked into every wound, and Din knew that if it didn’t come out, it would become infected. Even with a very heavy dose, she still felt pain if moved her the wrong way or if he scrubbed too hard.

Open wounds needed to be closed where possible. He learnt several colourful new swear words from the Pirate during the process. Exhausted, she now lay in the pool with her eyes shut: the arduous task complete, there was nothing left to do but relax and let the healing waters and cocktail of drugs do their work.

He had taken her dirt-encrusted clothes, washed them, and hung them by the fire. He looked down at his own gear and it struck him that he was not all that much cleaner than she had been. There was nothing for it but to strip to his helmet and wash them.

After his clothes were hung to dry too, he lowered himself into the water at the shallow edge and began to bathe. The warm water was wonderful. He felt his joints and muscles start to ease, and his skin felt amazingly clean. The healing and scabbing scars on his body rejoiced.

His movement in the water must have roused her from her stupor. She looked up from where she had been floating out in the deeper middle of the pool.

“Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy! You’re in the water!” she spoke slowly, and Din knew it was an effort for her to speak at all. He was not surprised: she had consumed enough drugs to knock out a Blurrg.

“You were right. This place was worth the journey.” He had to admit it.

“I love it here, and I need it - I’m damaged cargo!” She laughed like it was a punch line of a joke. He thought at first she had lost her ability to think straight, but the giggling died out and she added quietly “That was one rough day… You saved my life. Thank you.”

She was quite a few feet away, but he caught sight of a grin.

“You were willing to risk yours to help me.” he said “So it was my pleasure.”

“Was it now?” she said grinning. She moved towards him.

Had he just given her a signal he had not intended to send?

He became suddenly and acutely aware that they were both naked. Of course, having each played the roles of medic and patient now, they had seen everything the other had to offer (the only exception being his face). However, if he had to spurn her advances, it could end in tears (or violence).

But rather than approach him, Tur veered at the last minute and positioned herself to sit beside him. Close enough to talk quietly, just far enough away to maintain decency.

He had misjudged her. His lubricated brain fed him a realisation ( _You have misjudged her far too often, you dumb Wookiee_ ). Perhaps the drugs had a point? He chuckled.

“What’s funny?”

What should he say? ( _Honesty. It’s what she would do.)_ “I thought you were coming over here to…. How do I put this?”

He didn’t have to put it any way at all, because she understood and cackled with glee.

“Ooooh! Nice thought, but highly problematic... _Aa'kua_!” she leaned over and with her good arm, wrapped her knuckles on his helmet. He laughed. Aa'kua meant ‘personal space’. He knew it was her way of saying she respected his boundaries, and he was just being stupid.

Unexpectedly, Tur said in a more serious tone “Don’t ever let _anyone_ take that helmet off you. You are a Mandalorian. That means something.”


	11. The Game of Tell Me

### The Game of Tell Me

After a long, stoned silence (during which Din had felt certain the Pirate had actually fallen asleep) she surprised him by saying out of nowhere “I’m bored. Let’s play ‘Tell Me’.”

“What’s ‘Tell Me’?”

“Rules are simple. You ask, I have to tell you. I ask, you have to tell me. Truthfully, mind. Can’t make shit up.” Tur summarised.

“That’s it? You just talk about yourself?” said Din in disbelief. It seemed stupid and pointless.

“Seems easy, but when it comes to being truthful about who you are… your past…”

She didn’t have to say any more. He was starting to see what she meant, but there was one more flaw: “What’s to stop people lying?” he asked.

“Nothing. That’s what makes it so fascinating to watch. Humans like to lie when they should tell the truth and spill their secrets when they should be silent. People have killed each other over it, too.”

“Killed each other over _talking_?”

“Yep. Some people have got big secrets. Some people ask questions that they don’t want to know the answers to. You can imagine some of the shit that gets said.”

“I guess we can play it. What else is there to do?”

“Exactly. Can’t play Sabacc in a bath. Besides, I’m so shit-faced I will tell you anything right now, so this should be fun.”

He frowned. “I don’t want you to regret…”

“Relax. We’ll play Pirate style anyway. If you don’t want to answer, then pass and ask again. Pirates don’t play for keeps; we play to keep friends. Besides, I don’t think either of us are holding any trust issues now after today’s shit, would you agree?”

“I would agree.”

***

The Mandalorian lay by the fire and watched the rise and fall of her breathing. She was lying on her one good side, back to both him and the fire.

She was still inebriated when he lifted her from the pool, but was miraculously able to stand somewhat through the process of dressing her. ‘Drunk feet’, she called it. A great skill. Now she breathed slowly, but steadily and without struggle.

He reflected on what had been discussed between them. They spoke about the past. It had been dark conversation. Both orphans. Both with parts of their past that no longer rang true with who they had grown to be. Crimes. Violence. Loss. Retribution. So much bloodshed.

Regrets? Guilt? Sadness? Anger? Pain? Yes.

Need to relive it came from an unspoken understanding that this would lead to healing. Confession is cathartic, and a little tolerance goes a long way.

She was still breathing calmly. He watched her curves rise and fall. There had been more than pain. There had been pleasure.

Savage joy? Bloodlust? Excitement? Even arousal? Yes.

They were both predators.

Din Djarin had enjoyed hearing Turhaya Hundteth speak about her first kill.

***

Even though Tur was bombed out of her head, she had a shrewd idea that Din would ask about it eventually.

“The Burning Day. They found you, didn’t they? The Storm Troopers in the Corellian forest.” He sounded hesitant.

“Yes…”

This wasn’t the first time she had told the story, and she was used to the way people reacted to it. Others saw it as a tragedy, or a tale of gore. Not Tur. Her ability to survive such things had always been a source of pride.

“Did they….?” he started to ask, and she knew what he meant without him having to finish the thought. She was 16 at the time, and the question was obvious.

“No. They tried. The Empire always send beasts on extermination missions. They’re known for it.”

“Were you scared?”

“Terrified, but I killed them before they could. Thing with men like that? They’re trying to keep you alive to get what they want from you. They don’t know what to do when you start fighting to kill. Storm Troopers are stupid. My brother Bera always said if you charge them quick enough, they _freeze like frightened prey_ …”

Tur had noticed it, even though she was wasted. It was all in his body language. He was a predator, and she could almost smell the excited bloodlust on him. 

She grinned.

“How did it happen?” he asked. His voice was quiet, yet she could hear the hunger in it.

She decided to give him the details he was craving “I was pinned by one. Some were looking out, while the others stood and watched. They were stupid. They had taken my blaster, but I still had my hunting knife, and a hound tooth shiv.

The one on top of me took off his helmet before trying to undress me, because I was struggling so much. He wanted to watch me struggle. Not only had he exposed his neck, but he had let go of my wrists. He got the shiv in the neck for his arrogance, the filthy animal. It was easy. I hit him right in the artery. It was raining blood all over me. The others were shocked, and they _froze_.”

She licked her lips slowly, and looked at him, waiting for a reaction.

“Go on...” when the Mando spoke, it was almost sensual.

She grinned.

“I pushed him off and rolled away. I had rolled up against the legs of a second, so he got the shiv in the inner thigh simply because it was convenient. Another artery hit. The shiv went so deep, he couldn’t get it out and kept screaming for a while. I rolled over backwards and got halfway up when the third one closed, but I got the hunting knife in his gut just in time. I ripped him up and he spilled in a major way…”

He let out a heavy breath that the audio feed of the helmet picked up. Din must be _really_ enjoying himself. She had fixed the helmet and knew its capabilities. Right now, the visor would be telling him that she was _really_ enjoying herself too.

“By this time, the rest were trying to grab me. They should have tried to _kill me._ The fourth I stabbed, used as a human shield and took his blaster. Five through ten went down before the blaster jammed. Eleven got the knife in the neck, but it was an awkward angle, and the knife stuck.

The twelfth took a while. _He_ tried to _run_. I pinned him down and removed his helmet. I beat his brains out with the broken blaster I was still holding. He struggled at first. Eventually there was not much of his face left, and he stopped twitching.”

Tur moved closer to him. She needed no helmet, and her practiced eye caught the tiny, involuntary tensing of muscles. Din Djarin had flinched.

“Did you drink?” he said softly. She could feel the intensity of his gaze returning through the steel.

When her answer came, her tongue caressed the words like a lover: “Yes, and I _loved_ it.”

***

Din risked the mushrooms and sank into the pool.

This was the second night at their camp, and she was in much better shape. She healed well and would probably be able to travel back to the cabin in the morning.

The mushrooms had them both lit up like light sabres, and tonight’s game of Tell Me was much different. Tonight, it was ‘war stories’ of all varieties. There was a lot of laughter, lewd comments, and cheering. His list of crimes was surprisingly longer, and his stories of daring were unsurprisingly more exciting. She took the stakes in substance abuse, explosions, and sex.

Tur had lived a lifestyle much different to his. While he had been undertaking his rigorous training, the Pirate had been living a life of vice. Yet somehow both paths had led to some strikingly similar experiences. Even though Tur was random and chaotic, and he was solid and exact, Din knew they were alike. It was the duality of them both – good and bad, light and dark – that meant they had a ground of common understanding, because both had an innate knowledge that you can be more than one thing at any given time.

“Tell Me: what _are_ the rules around Mandalorian sex and marriage and all that stuff?” she asked.

“Where to start? Ask me something more specific.”

“OK. Can you have sex before marriage?”

“No. But clearly you can...”

She cackled “Yep, I’m a Pirate! We’ll fuck anyone.”

A beat, and then a thought occurred to him. “Wait? Have you… with a woman?”

“Of course. I’m a Pirate. I already told you – _We’ll fuck anyone_.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m serious too!”

They both broke out in stoned laughter.

“Can you do _other things_ before marriage?” she asked.

“Leaving the helmet on makes that reasonably limited.”

“That sucks! …or maybe it doesn’t _suck_?” When the laughter finally settled again, she asked “Do you have to marry other Mandalorians?”

“Once. Long ago. We’re… too few now. It’s not a luxury we can afford. You?”

“Pirates marry Pirates, because no one else wants us. Your Clan leader is supposed to give permission first, but these days it’s only necessary if you’re clanning up, and that _never_ happens.”

“What does ‘clanning up’ mean?”

“ _Join from the outside._ Tatt up. If you want to crew with Pirates, you need to be one. It’s exceedingly rare – who _wants_ to become a Pirate? No one in their right mind would choose the life of a War Dog.”

He scoffed “Your Code isn’t hard to follow. The Way requires discipline.”

“No shit!”

Laughter.

She asked “If someone marries you, do they have to become a Mandalorian?”

“Not a warrior held to Creed. There’s no helmet. Citizenry only.”

“Wait! Can you take your helmet off in front of them if they don’t have one of their own, or is your wedding night kind of awkward?”

Laughter.

“Of course. In private, you can remove it in front of your immediate family. Whether they walk The Way or not.”

“Well, at least family time provides room for movement, I guess.”

The Mando’s next words killed the laughter “I don’t have any family.”

She looked at him for a moment, then said “I’m sorry. That was tactless.”

Tur reached for his helmet with her good hand and pulled his face towards hers. Closing the distance between them in the water, she leant in and kissed the steel softly and sadly.

Despite the warmth of the water, it was as if a sudden blast of icy wind – or cruel fate – had rushed through and bitten him.

***

Tur could feel it - the awkwardness had settled on the waters between them like an unpleasant fog. It had been her big mouth that had done the damage, so she was surprised when it was Din who broke the silence.

“There’s something I need to ask you.” his voice was unusually quiet, even for him.

“Sure.”

“When we took down the Akk Dog…” he said “Why did you want to sacrifice yourself? Why did you want to give up and die?”

She was indignant. “I didn’t want to _give up and die!_ I trusted you to take the shot.”

“Trusted me to take the shot? I’d already failed once. It’s not your fight, and I’m in debt to you for saving my life and destroying your property. Why did you risk your life for a beacon, when you could have waited for your brother?”

Slowly she said “ _Ihn Corellisi nyeve min bhiq suman ehin nyiad._ ”

The Mandalorian parried “ _‘A Corellian never turns his back on someone in need’_? I know the saying, but you know that isn’t what I meant…."

People have died playing Tell Me.

With a thrill of mortified horror, she understood where the Mando was headed. He knew. The fucking bastard knew.

“Why did _you_ help _me_?” he asked.

People have died playing Tell Me.

“I think you already know the answer to that.” she said. She tried to keep her voice impassive. Playing Sabacc.

“Are you in love with me?”

She couldn’t lie - he would know. That stupid helmet told him everything. Everything came back to that infernal fucking beskar lid. She braced herself for impact and felt the same swooping sensation in her stomach she had felt being flung from the sled. She recalled the taste of blood in her mouth: her own.

Her answer was like steam on the water. A breath. Barely more than a whisper “Yes.” It took everything for her to continue, but when she did, her voice was still playing Sabacc. “But I will _never_ ask you to take off that helmet _._ Leave as planned. Don’t make me tell you again.”

_Now_ she wanted to give up and die.


	12. The Sabacc of Pirates

### The Sabacc of Pirates

Despite the fact Din had caused this situation, he had no idea how to handle it.

Tur was well enough to sit in the passenger seat of the speeder the next morning, so the journey back to the cabin was quick. Quick and silent. He supposed it was for the best.

She started work on the coms tower alone, going to the hangar immediately when they arrived at the cabin, and not emerging for the rest of the day. Din was sitting by the fire that evening when she finally appeared. She slowly sat down near him, and he started from his thoughts. The Pirate was clearly plastered yet continued to swig directly from a bottle she was carrying. How she had managed to do any work in her current state was beyond him. She seemed to be making a genuine attempt to self-destruct.

Tur touched her cheek absent-mindedly. He recognised it as the place where he had once struck her with a blaster. Without looking at him, she said quietly “It’s done. He’s coming.”

So soon? He knew she wanted it over. “How long?”

She swayed in an unbalanced fashion for a moment, before grunting “Morning.”

“Good.”

Tur forced herself upright and staggered to the cabin without another word.

With the sunrise, the roaring thrusters of her brother’s freighter meant it was time to get to work.

Now that Bera was in range, the Mandalorian was able to send him an encrypted message.

***

For the Old Clan, camping together meant defences, resources, and community, and any number of them could assemble at any time. Clan religious festivals (which were notorious in reputation) would draw them by the thousands.

The ‘family’ unit was traditionally nuclear, and often travelled alone. A ‘Clan’ comprised of several extended family units, and often many members who were not related at all. ‘Crew’, ‘friend’ and ‘family’ were treated as the same under the wider term of ‘Clan’. Marriages were not used for strategic alliances and were based on love. Pirates tended to marry across-clan, and partner choice was often based on whether the person had a ‘green heart’ (green being any Corellian’s favourite colour). That is, someone with a great capacity for kindness, empathy, generosity and love.

Old Clan gathered for periods lasting anywhere from a few days to several weeks, so permanent buildings were rare. Ships were generally the only solid structures available, and provided security, additional shelter, storage and essential facilities. While some facilities were needed, outright luxuries were deemed wasteful and selfish. But there were some exceptions to this rule. Nursing mothers and elders were afforded as much comfort as possible. Clan leaders and retired War Dogs (those few that made it that far) had earned it.

However, for most Clan, once they felt their ship was able to properly defend itself, all other efforts went into engine performance. You can’t always out-gun your enemy, and there will often be times when the only option left is to escape.

A good War Dog should always know when to cut their losses and run.

***

Din did something different for once – allowed himself to stand around and watch.

Bera’s Dogs brought parts, tools, and a lot of alcohol. As they descended from their freighters, the Mando took the opportunity to simply observe them.

They set up camp and got to work immediately. They were rough cut, and straightforward (almost to the point of being offensively blunt), but they were also friendly, generous and open.

The Corellians worked fast, and were excellent technicians, but refused to let Din work on the _Razor Crest_ or be in their way. The Dogs underestimated how possessive the Mandalorian was about his property. It took less than twenty-two minutes for the first fight to break out, and by lunch time, blasters were banned from the hangar.

Apart from the Crest, everything went smoothly. As the afternoon wore on, Din found himself starting to fit in. The exception was Bera. It was clear that the Clan leader absolutely despised him.

***

The workday over, the Pirates settled in for the night around the fire. The Mandalorian had declined to join in, but from his vantage point in the dark he could still see them.

Rousing cheers meant a group had started a Sabacc game. Din watched – it was like no other Sabacc game he had seen, because there was too much laughter. He thought here must be something to the old saying that you can tell the difference between Old Clan and a City Corellian by the way they play cards.

If a Clan has adequate resources and protection, they are not usually greedy. Apart from a sturdy ship, and a green heart to return to at the end of a hard journey, Pirates had very few needs.

Which leads to the card playing.

Pirate Sabacc was private, played with friends and family. They used chits made from Hound teeth, bolts, or pebbles, instead of money. In a sharing community, taking money from one another made little sense. It was the fun and companionship that was important, as well as the strategic skills the game had to teach.

A Pirate will play for credits if they really need to, but not if they can avoid it. This gave them a more grinding style, and they rarely went All-In.

Old Clan loved Sabacc none the less, and many of their colloquial expressions were derived from the game. “Full Sabacc” seemed to be a term used to indicate something rare, valuable or wonderful. “All-In” still meant taking a big risk (the same as Basic), but for Clan the connotations are negative.

Being a social investment rather than a financial one, they would sometimes fold a winning hand simply as a sign of respect or thanks for a great deed. The higher the hand, the greater the gesture.

But the biggest difference of all? A _real_ Pirate would _never_ gamble their ship.


	13. The Losing Hand

### The Losing Hand

Din was still there. Sitting in the dark. Waiting.

Bera appeared at his shoulder.

“Please. Sit.”

The Clan leader was muscular, ruggedly handsome, and sported a long beard and war plait. Unlike the younger members of his crew, Bera’s war tattoos on his head were fully completed. They ran down his neck and disappeared into his collar, and Tur said they extended down to the small of his back. His voice was deep and articulate, but tonight it would also bite with impatience and anger. He was unfortunately shrewd, and Din guessed that this discussion would be short, but difficult.

Both men stared ahead and did not exchange looks as they spoke.

The Pirate cut right to the issue, growling “Your message: did you think about how your little scheme would affect my sister?”

“Just like her. Straight to the point.”

“As are you. You two are very alike in some ways. That’s why she loves you at her own cost.”

“She told you.” Not a question.

“I can see the scars of your carelessness on her face without being told! But yes, she told me. _Everything_.” Now the Pirate sounded mad.

“I know I have hurt her. She will hurt again.”

 _“And I should cut your heart out for it now!”_ Bera’s angry growl was so much like his sister’s, only far more intimidating.

Din persisted despite the threat “It is necessary. You know this better than anyone.”

“You owe her! If you’d crashed anywhere else in the galaxy, you wouldn’t have your helmet _or_ your life! You’re lucky my sister is crazy enough, and smart enough, to see that you kept both! _”_

“This is true.” said Din “She’s much smarter than me.” 

The Dog softened slightly talking about her “Her name - ‘Turhaya’ - means ‘bright star’ in our language. Always one of the best thinkers around. Great pilot. Not the build for fighting, and mediocre on the trigger, but a brilliant knack for problem solving.”

“I think I’ve seen some of that.”

“You’ve seen, but clearly didn’t learn anything! She makes things work, Mando. You destroy things. I guess that’s the way things are for you.”

“It is not in our Creed to….”

“Not the Mandalorian way. Your way! _Cjaalysce'l – ‘Your reputation proceeds you’._ You’re a true predator, and your favourite prey is man. _”_

“I am Mandalorian. We are both predator _and_ prey.”

“I know your position, bounty hunter! Why do you think I haven’t ripped off your arms like an angry Wookiee? You’re already in over your head with debt to the Clan, and that beskar would pay for everything nicely...”

Din looked up at the Clan leader. The full implications of what Bera said started to sink in, and what’s worse, he had failed to curb his reaction.

The War Dog grinned darkly “At last, we hit upon something you actually care about... You’re in luck, Mando. It’s only because I understand what you are, and what you are capable of, that we are even having this discussion.”

“Then you agree to my proposal?”

“Yes.” Bera relented “I agree.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. This Sabacc hand is being played at my sister’s expense, and without her knowledge. Turhaya might bloody well kill you for your stupidity, and I certainly won’t be trying to stop her if she does turn on you.”

“Yes. I know that’s a possibility.”

“It’s not just her you need to worry about. Mess any of this up, and I’ll wash the taste of your betrayal out of my mouth with your own blood.”

“Understood.”

“Come to my ship when the others are asleep. This conversation isn’t finished!” The Pirate stood up and walked away, growling angrily over his retreating shoulder _“Make it quick! Time to turn them over or fold, Mando!”_

***

The Clan went hunting at first light, but now the sun was well up.

Tur was in no mood to hunt. She remained sitting by the fire alone, waiting for them to return so they could finally finish the repairs to that stupid fucking _Razor Crest_. By tonight, the Mandalorian would be gone. Sunset couldn’t come fast enough. 

Din appeared from inside the cabin. He made his way over to the fire and sat down next to her. She wished he wouldn’t.

“How about one last round of Tell Me?” Din asked unexpectedly.

“I don’t remember the last game ending well.” Tur replied flatly.

_“Our game isn’t finished...”_

He said it in a way that was unmistakably serious, and she thought she saw the blurry beginnings of what the greasy motherfucker was up to. This was not Tell Me. This was Sabacc, and she suspected the cards had already been dealt without her knowledge.

She scowled darkly _“Are things cool between us?_ I can tell you now they _fucking aren’t_. The sooner you get the fuck off my rock, the better. It’s what we both want.”

_Check._

“Ask again.”

_Call._

Not what she was expecting. Her eyebrow raised despite her best efforts to keep it locked in place. What the fuck was he playing at now?...

Her patience started to wear thin, and she growled “ _Am I going to ask about the helmet?_ Are you stupid, or do you just like insulting me? …I don’t even know why we’re talking about this shit…”

“ _Stop fucking around_ and ask the one thing that matters!”

_Raise. Big fucking raise._

The move was overly aggressive. His tone, more so. The asshole was forcing her All-In at a time when she could least afford it.

After a moment’s internal struggle, she reluctantly asked “Do you love me?”

_All-In._

The Mandalorian countered without hesitation. Like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter. “Yes.”

_All-In._

The answer, for anyone else, would have been cause for joy. For the Pirate, the one-word reply hit her like a physical strike, and it was excruciating. More than that, they were not done yet, and Tur was out of credits. Broke. She had a losing hand, and the bastard in the beskar just kept raising the stakes.

Beskar. So valuable, tough, and so much blood spilled on its account. She had nothing left to give, but… sometimes the steel was worth the price.

Fuck it.

 _Bet the ship_.

“You’re still leaving, aren’t you?”

_Time to turn them over or fold, Mando._

He gave the answer again, and it delivered the same sickening pain “Yes.”

Din was not finished either, and he twisted the knife “I am Mandalorian, and that will never change while I live and breathe. I believe you will respect my decision. You said it yourself – It’s what we both want. I have a duty to the child, and I will never betray my Creed….

…This is The Way _._ ”

With her last scrap of strength…

She nodded in agreement.

_It was done. She had turned over her losing hand._

Everything hurt. Her ears were still ringing from the bluntly delivered truth. He was right. She did want him to walk The Way. Caught in her gut-wrenching agony, she nearly missed what issued from the accursed helmet next:

“So, make this work, Pirate. Marry me.” Din moved his sleeve and glove to show the raw, new tattoo on his wrist – Corellian Hound teeth. Bera’s work.

_He had folded Full Sabacc for her._


	14. The Winning Hand

### The Winning Hand

_Sister,_

_If you’re reading this, Din took his hand off his blaster and asked you. I’m sure he hasn’t had the meteorites to inform you yet, but he had been waiting to join the Clan so neither Code nor Creed was broken._

_You should skin him alive for testing your ethics. We’re bending Code by letting him live after all the shit he has caused, so he had better appreciate his continued existence, and the fact I even considered letting him into the Clan. I’d tell you to kick him in the Mynok, but you probably want that in working order._

_While I am away:_

  1. _Get the Mando vows done._
  2. _Do not resume work on the ships, and do NOT let Tin Can near ANYTHING technical under ANY circumstances._
  3. _Fend for yourself. We’ll be back in three days._



_I’m sure you will find many ways to pass the time without messing up the Crest._

_If he hurts you again, call me, and I will gut him like a Fleek Eel._

_Your Brother, Bera._

***

Din knew she was raw from all the pain. She was seething that he had joined the Clan without telling her. But it was his need to _test her_ which made the difference between anger and outright rage.

A savage test, which painfully dragged from the hot pools, and culminated with the brutal proposal. He had made her sign her own emotional death warrant by the fireside as the final act of torture.

As cruel as it had seemed, and as crippling as the pain may have been, it was necessary. He needed to know that love hadn’t clouded her judgement or softened her resolve. Din Djarin knew that if he ever married, his wife must be willing to place his Creed above all. No matter the price. No matter the pain. Even in the face of death. She must be unshakeable. She must have a beskar heart.

Necessary... But painful. And risky. He understood what Bera meant about being killed over his stupidity.

The Clan left plenty of empty bottles around the fire. The sound of glass shattering on beskar punctuated the tirade of words, as she hurled both at him with full force.

_SMASH!_

“You cold-blooded, egotistical…

_SMASH!_

…selfish, arrogant, stupid….

_SMASH!_

…cock-sucking sack of Dewback shit!!!...

_SMASH!_

I _told you_ I would honour what you fight for!! I _told you_ I would respect your life’s work!!! I told you I would _fucking let you die_!!!!!”

_SMASH!_

“It was necessary!” he shouted defensively “I had to be sure you would still respect The Way, even after you’d fallen in love! No matter the cost!”

“You really think I’d shit on your Creed like that??!! You stupid motherfucker!!! And you have _no idea_ what it cost me, you nerf-herding prick!!!”

_SMASH!!_

“I had to see you pay the price!”

“Like I already did with the fucking Akk Dog??!!!!! You should have known then!!!!!!”

_SMASH!!!_

“You could have been compromised by your own emotions!”

“Emotions??!! What would _you know_??!! You’re about as emotional as a fucking _droid_!!!”

_SMASH!!!!_

“I had to be sure you would never be tempted! I had to be sure you would keep your word!”

_"CORELLIANS ALWAYS KEEP THEIR FUCKING WORD!!!!”_

She charged at him, and during the scuffle that ensued, landed several good punches to the sides of his ribs. Din could have made her stop sooner, but felt he was probably getting what he deserved. He was glad she had no knives on her at any rate.

Eventually she calmed down.

This was good, he assured her.

This was _great_.

***

_“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde.”_

In Mando’a, the language of the Mandalore, it means:

_“We are one whether we are together or apart, we will share everything, and we will raise our children as warriors_.”

It took her three attempts to get it right, and her accent was terrible.

He supposed it didn’t matter all that much – they say Corellians always keep their word.

***

He was nervous.

Being outdoors made him feel exposed, even on a near-deserted moon. He suggested they go inside the cabin for this: the helmet. Here they were again, in the kitchen, talking about the possibility of Tur removing his helmet.

It was all a complete mind-fuck.

Words he thought he would never say… “You can take it off now. You’re officially the one person in the galaxy who can.” He was shaking with adrenaline.

“That should be a right you keep for yourself. I won’t take it off. You have my word.”

Beskar heart. He chuckled to himself. He really wished she could see him smiling. He genuinely _wanted_ to take it off for her. It was a strange feeling.

As he reached for the steel, she said “Wait.”

“What?”

“Do it… slowly…” she cheeked.

“OK, then. Slowly.”

He started to remove it, slowly. Very slowly. He toyed with her. Pulled it halfway up and put it back down again. They both laughed. It eased the awkward tension somewhat.

“Now - _Make it quick_.” she winked.

“That’s mean…” but he pulled the helmet off in one fluid motion, and they finally saw each other face-to-face.

Time stopped for a few seconds. Or hours. It was hard to tell.

With a gasp, she said “Canto Bight! I’ve hit the fucking jackpot!”

With a chuckle “I take it you’re happy then?”

“ _Happy?_ Full Sabacc!”

He had been hoping for a kiss, but when she moved closer to him, it was to study his face. Meet the man who had been hidden under the helmet. See her husband for the very first time. He could tell by her expression it was overwhelming for her.

She touched his face softly, taking in every line, detail and scar. The feel of foreign contact on his skin was jarring. How long had it been?... It was overwhelming for him too.

The application of sudden stress after a long period of atrophy, causes a great deal of pain in any part of a human. This is especially true of the heart. When such a person finds love after many hard years, the love can initially hurt more than the long suffering itself.

For a while they did nothing but look at each other like lost children. Then, with no other way to hold back the enormous tide of mixed emotions, they hugged. They held each other so tightly he thought his armour would crack.

After a while, she leaned back to look at him again and ran her fingers through his hair. Her nails scratched lightly over his scalp, and he closed his eyes at the sensation. That’s when she made her move like a true Pirate – with heat, and by surprise.

While he still had his eyes closed, she kissed him.

***

“Your first kiss?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Too much, too soon?”

He smiled “No. Too good, after so long.”

She smiled to show she understood, and when she kissed him again it was softer.

He was now able to process the experience completely. Create a ray of light in a landscape which was normally covered in darkness. A happy memory in a troubled mind.

Love was not about ignoring the pain; it was about healing it.

Making it work.


	15. The Gifts

### The Gifts

Three days inside the cabin (or was it under the ship?) went exceptionally fast.

Din was determined to make up for lost time, and the Pirate responded with her trademark inventive flair and dogged resolve. His helmet stayed off the entire time. So did the rest of the beskar. It felt surprisingly good, and he didn’t miss it once.

During the last day while the Crest was being finalised and tested by the Clan, a lot of their time was spent sitting in the kitchen talking quietly. She sat opposite him at the table, staring into his eyes with a wicked grin, and unashamedly telling him often that she no idea what he had just said.

As the night grew dark, the drunken Clan outside were loud and exuberant. It was the same inside the cabin. Tomorrow he would leave, and there was a chance they might not see each other again. There was still a dangerous job to do, and they both had prices on their heads.

He was more surly than usual as he stood on the ramp of _Razor Crest_ the next morning, but she seemed strangely unruffled. When Din asked her why she was so happy to be rid of him, Tur replied with words he would never forget.

“I’m not. I’m happy I found you. Now, find Cara and the kid. I’ll see you soon, if the gods will it. …Don’t wreck the Crest again!”

Straight to the point. He approved.

***

Cara took a moment of silence to process all this.

Din sipped at his spotchka.

It was a lot to take in all at once. Dune felt her head buzzing with more than the Pirate’s booze.

The Mando stood and inclined his helmet slightly. She followed him.

In the bunk, Cara saw that they were both asleep – child and Pirate, snuggled together contentedly. Tur had changed into a sleeveless shirt, stripping the leathers and blasters. It made her look almost normal.

But perhaps it wasn’t the change in the Pirate’s clothes that made her appear normal now, so much as the change in Cara’s attitude? Din’s words echoed at her from the back of her mind - _‘I don’t know if I’ve changed, but I think I’ve grown.’_

Dune noticed a tattoo on the woman who was now her crew mate. One she hadn’t seen yet. Devoid of its sleeve, the upper right arm now showed new black ink on the pale skin. The Mudhorn skull.

The Pirate opened bleary eyes and lifted her head. Without need for words, Din carefully picked up his son and transferred him to the carrier. While he soothed the baby back into a deep sleep, Cara found herself face-to-face with Tur.

Dune wanted the kid to stay asleep, and because she could not really think of anything adequate to say, she silently put one hand on the Pirate’s shoulder and smiled. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and then Tur returned the gesture.

They were in silent agreement: everything had been said.

***

The rapport between the women was built rapidly, and Din appreciated their combined effort to make it happen. He was sure under other circumstances it could have ended in blaster fire. However, walking in on his best friend shaving his wife’s head with a knife still caught him off guard.

“Do I even want to know?” he asked, as the baby babbled away in his carrier.

Tur said “Don’t worry, it’s just the sides.”

The Mandalorian had never seen the tattoos on his wife’s head before, so he hung around to watch.

Cara said “This is a lot of ink. You really bombed all those people?”

“Empire people. Yep.” said Tur.

He knew the jawbone on the left was done first after the day in the Corellian forest. The right, after the cantina incident. Each of the jawbones ran above the ear, down the side of the head and connected at the nape of the neck. The teeth were done individually. Each represented a destroyed Empire ship, or a bounty hunter who had tried to claim the Pirate’s head and lost. Din had heard some of the stories. Both jawbones were set full of teeth, and several more ran down the back of the neck. Add to that two full wrist rows, and he knew it equalled a lot of explosives.

Cara asked “So you had to shave your head each time?”

“No, I used to keep it shaved. Draws attention though. I was happy when I could move onto wrists, but it’s traditional to start with the head… unless you’re a Mando and the Clan leader bends the rules for you.” Tur added to Din “He’s still pissed off. Said I should have thrown fewer bottles and more punches.”

“You spoke about me after I left.” Not a question.

After raising a knowing eyebrow at him in reply, Tur slipped her knife back into its sheath. The job was done, and she left to clean up.

“Wait.” said Cara to Din “You two haven’t been together this whole time?”

“No.” said Din “I came looking for you. Tur had things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Plan for the job we’re about to pull.”

“You just married and went your separate ways?”

“Yes. She knows how this works. I have my path, and she has hers. She knew from the first time we said goodbye it could be our last.”

“That’s rough. Why did she agree?”

“Says it was ‘worth betting the ship for’. There might be long periods where we can’t be together, and there’s always a risk one of us will be caught or killed.”

“She’s OK with that?”

“Yep.”

“Rare woman.”

“I know.”

“So, what was this task you had her do?” Cara asked.

“She’s good at hacking databases. I needed her to find a way to get to what Imps know about the kid.”

“Speaking of which, has the kid seen your face yet?”

“Yes.”

“So, I’m the only one on this ship who hasn’t seen your face? What a rip off! Have you given the kid a name yet?”

“No. Have you?” he asked.

“Why would I name him? You’re his father! I’m not anything.” said Cara.

“Yes, you are.” Tur had returned and made Cara jump. Din sniggered to himself under his helmet. He always found it funny on the rare occasions Dune got caught off guard.

Tur explained her reasoning with “You’re his aunty.”

“No, I’m not!”

The Pirate argued “You raised him and protected him. You run with the kid’s parents. Clan kids would call you ‘aunty’. Why do you think we have so many ‘cousins’? We’re not actually all related, you know!”

“Really? The cousin-fucking thing is just a myth?”

Tur laughed “It may surprise you, but yes.”

Cara grinned, and returned to the original topic “So what’s this job we’re supposed to be pulling?”

The Pirate gestured to Din to take over the talking, much to his annoyance. She always said she talked too much, and he too little, and considered it ‘verbal target practice’ for him. He came close to saying something, then thought better of it. Her recent taunt about Bera was still stinging him.

“We need an asset.” he said “Unfortunately for us, it’s the first step in longer game. If this kid’s saga is going to come to a happy ending, we need to do a lot of work. We still need to find out what he is, and where he is from. Dogs haven’t found anything yet, but they’re looking.”

“Dogs?” Cara asked.

“Pirate war boys. They helped me locate you.” Din answered.

“I was wondering how you would contact me. I stayed pretty well hidden until the end.”

“You did a great job.”

“How did the Pirates find me?”

“They won’t say. _Corellian secret_ apparently.”

“Don’t they trust you?”

“They don’t trust me near anything technical because I’m not Corellian. They wouldn’t let me fix the Crest.” He was still sore about it.

“It’s nice to have some allies we can trust for a change.” said Cara “Especially ones who know what it’s like to be stomped on by Imps.”

“Yes. It’s…”

“Weird?” offered Cara.

“Yes. But…”

“Good?” she answered for him again. She interpreted his stiff body language correctly, and added “You know you’re _allowed_ to be happy?”

He greatly disliked the frequency and accuracy with which Dune was able to read him. However, it saved him from verbalising how he felt, and was therefore the lesser of the two evils.

They sat silently for a moment.

“So, what’s the plan?” Cara asked.

“We need to do three things: find out what Gideon knows about the kid, _destroy_ what he knows, then use what we find out to get the kid home. The data must be stolen first, and for that we need the asset. Which means you need your gifts.”

“Gifts?”

He walked away and briefly rummaged around in a storage container. He returned with a blaster and a necklace, which he handed to Cara saying “Modified blaster rifle. DLT-19D with a custom scope, the glow rod removed, and a grenade launcher incorporated.”

“Nice!”

“The wife made it.”

Cara chuckled. “What’s with the tooth necklace?” she was putting it on.

“Corellian Hound tooth. It will identify you as Pirate friendly.” It was the tooth from the deer hunt. Din had taken his Tur’s advice and made something nice of it. He had hand-carved the tooth in the Corellian style (inexpertly) and hung it on a leather strap himself.

“Pirate friendly? Don’t you mean I’ll be safe from threat of Pirates?”

“No. As far as they’re concerned, you’re the threat. Both of us blaster-whipped Tur when we first met her, remember? They have good reason to be cautious.”

“Fair point.” admitted Cara.

“If we get split up and you need to take the kid somewhere, we can no longer rely on the covert for help. We can’t risk the Guild. Take the kid to the Pirates. That necklace will get you in the door. We assumed you’d prefer it to another tattoo.”

“Thanks… and relax about being happy. Even people like us deserve to get lucky sometimes.” Cara said sagely.

“Sometimes with all the shit people like us go through, I think we deserve to get lucky more than most.” said Din.

“I just realised something.”

“What?”

“You still haven’t told me what the plan is.”


	16. Part Two: Red River Adventures of a Triggerman (Ch. 16 - The Doors)

# Part Two: Red River Adventures of a Triggerman

_“’Since when did you start believing those brainflushers know what they’re doing?’_

_‘I don’t. But I wouldn’t be happy about some other cop walking around with a loaded gun, hallucinating.’”_

_\- Dragon Tears (Dean Koontz)_

### The Doors

Mayfeld had no idea how long he had been stuck in this cell with these two idiots.

The distress beacon hadn’t led the Republic to the prison ship for some reason, and they’d been floating forever. When the systems rebooted, and the sirens finally stopped, it was heaven. For a while.

Then the arguing started.

In a cell designed to accommodate one person, three of them together was nothing short of hell. They had to share everything, including the shitty food. The droids refused to separate them. With no records in the system, they were unable to be assigned new cells.

Thankfully, the quick talking Triggerman managed to trip one bot’s logic, saying that food rationing was based _per prisoner_. Mayfeld knew the protocol. As there were three of them, the droids (being unable to fault the directive) at least started bringing enough to eat.

They wouldn’t starve to death, but that wasn’t what worried him right now. It was cabin fever, because if push came to shove, he knew other two could both kill him with their bare hands.

What was worse, with the mounting tension, he didn’t think the moment was very far away.

_He had to get off this fucking ship._

That’s when Mayfeld heard it: blaster fire.

He looked at his crew. Xi’an looked excited at the prospect of chaos. Burg looked gormless. None of them spoke as they listened to hear what was happening outside.

Footsteps were approaching. Coming in this direction. All three of them ran for the door at once. They couldn’t see anything yet, but they could hear the quiet beginnings of conversation approaching.

“Is that an A280-CFE covert field edition? I’ve always wanted one of them! Can your cousins get me one?”

“Probably. You like it? Reconfigured it into an assault rifle from my usual sniper set up.”

“Nice.”

Mayfeld didn’t recognise either of the voices, which clearly both belonged to women, but the next one sent his blood cold.

Just one word: “Quiet!”

_It was Mando._

The Triggerman looked at the other two and saw the same shock he felt. Xi’an hissed. No mistaking it this time, it was Mando who spoke again “They’re in here.”

That’s when Mayfeld saw them: the Dropper, the Pirate, and _the Mando._

“I’m going to kill you!” hissed Xian.

“You’re the one who’s dying today.” said the Pirate coldly.

“Who the fuck are you, blood-drinker?” said Mayfeld to the Pirate with disgust, then to the Dropper with fright “And who the fuck are _you_?” The shock trooper’s size and obvious strength intimidated him.

The Mando nodded to the Dropper “You’re up.”

“Back up from this door, or you’re blowing up with it!” the Dropper demanded.

The Pirate gave him a pointed look and said “Do it, Mayfeld.”

Mayfeld started. The beast had not said it savagely. It was almost like a _request_. From a fucking blood-drinker he didn’t know. Something was going on here, and despite the fact he had no idea what it was, he thought sticking around to find out might be preferable to death by door explosion.

He’d made a habit of listening to his instincts, which were usually good and had so far kept him alive. Right now, his instincts were screaming at him to do as the Pirate said. They were notorious for jailbreaks and why else would you run with a _monster_?

Against all plausible logic (because the Mando had probably come to kill them all) he chose to go with the flow. Mayfeld backed up and braced. Xi’an saw him and followed.

Burg, the great Dewback, just stood there.

“What did I just tell you, asshole? Move!” the Dropper warned the Devaronian.

Burg growled at her.

“Alright then. Fine. _Fire in the hole!”_

Mayfeld was surprised (and a little impressed) when the grenade launcher made short work of both the door _and_ Burg’s head.

The Dropper was clearly delighted at the result of her work. “Yes! You owe me twenty credits!” she said to the Mando with glee.

“Shit!” barked the Mando. To the now laughing Pirate, he added “This is your fault...”

The Dropper was a total fucking pro, and Mayfeld saw her charge through the smoke before it had cleared and grab Xi’an by the head. The shock trooper threw the Twi’lek roughly to the ground and cuffed her, lifted her onto what was left of the bench seat, then went to guard the door.

The Mando pointed to the Pirate “You’re up. _Make it quick.”_

The Pirate flipped her middle finger at the Mando and pulled out her blade. She advanced on Xi’an and growled “I’m going to enjoy this…”

The Triggerman knew that all Pirates were screwed-up in the head, but this one was _covered_ in ink. She must be what the Corellians call _Ke'dem_. Imbalanced. Crazy.

The Twi’lek knew what was coming and shouted in alarm “I don’t know you! You can’t! I’ve never touched you or any other Pirate! _I would never touch your filth!_ ”

“Oh, yes I can.” the Pirate grinned darkly “…and don’t call us filth.”

“You can’t…!”

The Pirate growled angrily across her “You tried to kill my husband, and for that I _can_ claim blood for blood! _Petchuck!”_ she barked.

Petchuck. It meant ‘bad blood’. Animosity.

“I don’t know your _dirty pirate_ husband!” Xi’an screeched.

Mayfeld observed that this must have been wrong thing to say, because the crazy Pirate went from growling maniac, to stone-cold killer in an instant.

“You _do_ know him.” The Pirate glared, pointing her blade at the Mandalorian.

 _“Ha!! Liar!!”_ Xi’an spat and laughed. “ _U_ _gly piece of scum!!!_ ”

The Pirate, still glaring coldly, pulled up her right sleeve to reveal a tattoo on her arm. A skull of some kind.

Xi’ans eyes went back and forth between the Mando and the Pirate. Mayfeld knew his crewmate was looking to the bounty hunter to kill the joke. In response, the Mando tapped the signet on his armour, and then showed a tattoo on his wrist.

The Pirate’s predatory grin started to return. Mayfeld saw how badly the psychotic savage had just hurt the Twi’lek and watched the animal size up her prey.

“I’ve got the right to kill you on his behalf _and_ enjoy it! _MAY THE GODS BE FUCKIN’ PRAISED!!”_ The Pirate roared the last words towards the ceiling with outstretched arms. When she looked back at her victim, her eyes were wide with excitement.

Mayfeld tasted bile, and cold sweat was beading everywhere on his body.

_“NOOOO!!!!”_

But it was too late.

As Xi’an screamed, the Pirate plunged the blade into her heart.

With her face almost touching the Twi’lek’s, the Pirate sat on her victim’s knees and hissed “I’ve had _everything_ under the beskar, bitch. When I kiss him from now on, I’ll taste your blood in my mouth!” The monster’s tongue licked his crewmate’s face.

Xi’an tried to speak, but all that came out of her mouth was a gurgling noise. Blood was pouring from the chest wound covering them both. The Pirate finished in a growl “And when I _fuck_ him tonight…” she twisted the blade on the emphasis _“…I’ll think about the light leaving your eyes!”_

The Pirate stood and pulled out the knife with an almighty wrench, spraying Xi’an into the air in a splattering arc. The animal took the blade, which was now coated in Twi’lek…

… _and licked it clean_.

The beast tilted her head back and ran her tongue over the back of the knife with a grin. Blood and drool ran down her face. Mayfeld watched in revulsion. The Dropper looked like she might be sick.

The monster wiped the blade on her pants and sheathed it. As she removed the mess from her chin with the back of her hand, she looked at the Mando and said “I _will_ think about that tonight…” 

The Mando made a small noise which could have been either disgust or arousal, and the Dropper (despite the fact her stomach had lurched earlier) _giggled._

 _What the fuck had happened to the Mando?_ Who were these sicko women he was running with? Mayfeld’s head felt like it was going to break.

As Xi’an’s corpse finally fell over with a dull thud, the Dropper turned to the Mando, saying “I guess that leaves you.”

The Mando said “Mayfeld. Long time... No see.”

He grabbed Mayfeld and cuffed him. It had been fear, revulsion and confusion that had kept the Triggerman rooted to the same spot this whole time. As the Mando restrained him, he seemed to find his voice again.

“What are you going to do, Mando? Shoot me? Let the monster eat me? Or are you just going to let the _Princess of Pain_ over there give me a beating?”

The Dropper said happily “You’re quite astute! Those are three of your four options.”

The Pirate chuckled appreciatively. Mayfeld shot at her “Oh! Since when did you transform into a human being? Did the moons align or something?”

“Shut up and listen!” snapped the Mando “We’re going to make you a little proposal to join our crew of misfits here, and there are four options.”

The Dropper took over and said with a sweet smile “Door number one: You say ‘no’. The Mando shoots you dead.”

The Mando said bluntly “Door number two: You say ‘yes’. You fight, make trouble, contact anyone, or annoy us in any way, and the _Princess of Pain_ will have your arms - Wookiee style.”

The Pirate growled with a grin “Door number three: You say ‘yes’. Betray us. I get a nice little swig of _Mayfeld’s Reserve_. I hear it’s a good vintage…”

The Dropper resumed “Then there’s lucky door number four: Take the opportunity and join the crew. Blow up some Imps. Make a few credits. Drink some spotchka. Have a good time…”

“So which door is it going to be, Mayfeld?” asked the Mando.


	17. The Crew

### The Crew

Back on the _Razor Crest_ , Mayfeld was thinking about whether he should have chosen door number one. Still, they were slightly less annoying than Xi’an and Burg, and it was something other than that damned cell.

At least the kid was kind of cute. He remembered with guilt the last time he’d seen the little green Womp Rat and thought about how he dropped it. He resolved never to tell the Pirate, who appeared to be the thing’s mother. Thankfully, the ghastly bitch had made herself scarce.

The Triggerman had no idea where the shock trooper fit in to this picture, and less of an idea where he fit in himself. All he could do was sit here and wait for answers.

But before he had answers, he had spotchka.

***

Din sat there with his helmeted head his hands, feeling defeated and frustrated. He wondered why they had bothered springing the ungrateful prick from jail in the first place.

“ _T_ _his_ is the job you wanted me to help you with?” said Mayfeld “Fuck me! You should have left me in the slammer! It’s impossible, Mando. Besides, once they find that prison ship, it won’t take them long to review the footage and figure out I’m running with you now. I’m a dead man. We all are.”

“We all were anyway.” reasoned Din.

“Finding any data on that bit of space junk is impossible.” said Tur mildly.

“Did your cousins strip it like a pack of little Jawas?” taunted Mayfeld.

“Yeah, they did. You can thank me later, because no one will find anything. It’s been cleaned.”

“In what? _Blood?_ I’ve never been sicker in my life…”

“Shut up!” called Cara to the room at large. Din and Tur had started on Mayfeld, and the three of them were now shouting over each other “Mayfeld, we’re going to waste so much time if you can’t keep focussed, so just do what you’re asked.”

Din, after that, had been pleased with the progress that first day. The Triggerman had been skittish, rude, and inclined to snap at them all, but had enough sense to understand that being a completely uncooperative asshole was not in his best interest.

At least the next few hours passed without punches…

***

Dune couldn’t help but feel that every plan she made with the Mando turned into a disaster. The five of them (including the kid) were stuck in the belly of the _Razor Crest_ , and it seemed that the insanity of the situation just kept mounting.

“I don’t get it.” said Cara “What do they want with an Acclamator-II class? It’s an obsolete planet bomber. It’s not an officer’s ship.”

Tur said “It’s a monster of a ship too. Takes 23,000 people. 10,000 tons of cargo. The thing’s a fucking _beast_!”

“How’d you know all that?” asked Mayfeld.

Din answered for the Pirate saying “She’s a Corellian. They’re all ship fanatics. What’s the ordinance capacity on that thing?”

“They’ll be carrying about 80 or 90 proton torpedoes….” said Mayfeld.

“100.” corrected Cara.

“They don’t need that shit on board now. Not with 24 Turbo Blasters. I bet that’s the stuff they gutted.” said the Pirate dismissively.

The Triggerman nearly snapped at Tur, but Cara saw it coming and interrupted diplomatically, asking him “Carries a bunch of other stuff too, right Mayfeld?”

“Yeah. All terrain enforcers, assault transports. You can fit 64 speeder bikes in this giant on top of all the other stuff.” he replied.

Tur added “Rothana Heavy Engineering made them during the Clone Wars, and those bastards are shady. Ship probably had Dark Side stink all over it before Gideon got his hands on it.”

“This still doesn’t make any sense.” said Cara “What would you need that much room for? Could it be data stacks?” she asked Tur.

Tur replied in a weary voice “I don’t care what gear you’re running; nobody needs that much space. You three are the experts, and I’m tired. Work it out. I’ll take the kid.” She left with the baby.

Cara suspected Tur had been avoiding the group deliberately in order to avoid the inevitable insults that the Triggerman continually threw the Pirate’s way. While Cara appreciated the sentiment, she also knew it was delaying the inevitable. They needed to work past it, or the animosity could blow up in their face. These sorts of arguments could cost them all their lives on a mission.

Mayfeld nodded after Tur, and said to Din “ _We’re_ the experts? Shouldn’t she know her way around a bombing craft? She’s the dirty fucking ink-head...”

_WHACK!_

Din punched Mayfeld in the mouth. Mayfeld shouted “What the fuck?!....” but Cara (with her recent resolve to keep the peace) offered the explanation.

“I wouldn’t talk that way about his wife, if I were you.” said Cara.

“What in the hell, Mando?! You actually _married_ that blood-sucking whore?!” Din raised his fist in warning, but Mayfeld ignored it and went on “I thought you were just running a crew, and that whole marriage thing was a joke - you know, a way to get back at Xi’an for trying to kill you. I didn’t think it was _real_! She’s a savage!”

“It’s not a joke!” said Din warningly, but Cara raised a hand and interjected.

“Why do you think Tur enjoyed it so much?” said Cara with a sly grin “She’s heard all the stories about Xi’an.” With a slight nod towards Din, she continued to tell Mayfeld “To be honest, I think they both enjoyed it.”

Mayfeld looked from the Dropper to the Mando to confirm the fact. The steel remained impassive and the Mando silent, but the Triggerman made his interpretation of it and said “You did, didn’t you? You sick fuck! Xi’an was right about you, wasn’t she?”

Cara shot a quizzical look at Mayfeld, who nodded and continued “Yeah, don’t let the Mando fool you, sweetheart! Apparently, he _really gets off_ on death! What was it, Mando? Alzoc III? You _enjoyed it_ , didn’t you? I bet you really got off watching the new freak get her bloodlust on with the old freak. You… er… started drinking a little blood there too, Mando?” he added with a cheeky wink.

 _“Watch it!”_ snapped Din.

Again, Cara was forced to intervene. She was already sick of the bickering and guessed that once Mayfeld got over his dislike of the Pirate, and the rest of them got over their dislike of him, they should be able to function together reasonably well.

“Look, Mayfeld.” said Cara “I was suspicious of her too. I hit her when we first met. Hell, even Din was suspicious of her.”

Din confirmed “I’ve pointed my blaster at her many times.”

“Hey, I don’t want burst your bubble, but she’s a _blood-drinking, cousin-humping animal_.” said the Triggerman.

“We’re all animals.” said Cara “Do you think hunting down and killing an _innocent child_ isn’t animal behaviour? Is she any worse than the Imps she drinks from? Is she really any worse than _us_?”

“Maybe, soldier.” said Mayfeld “But I’ve never seen shit like _that_ before in the field. Have you?”

“First for me.” admitted Cara.

“Same for me.” said Din “I believe she was being slightly more… _theatrical_ for Xi’an’s sake. She would consider the kill a trophy of sorts. Like hunting a prize buck.”

“Bullshit!” said Mayfeld “Now you’re trying to tell me that was all fake?”

“Nope.” said Din “She drank. She liked it. The viciousness was a bit more personal. From what I understand, she normally doesn’t play with her food before eating.”

Mayfeld made a noise of abject disgust. “So that was just for your ex?”

“Yep. Corellians are passionate.”

“Psychopathically so, it seems.”

_WHACK!!!_

“Gentlemen!” Cara was now tired too. Tired of the shit. “Can we please just try and figure this out? If we don’t act like _adults_ and stay on task, it will be _the baby_ that suffers. Mayfeld, we’re doing something right. Can’t you just go along with it?”

In the silence that followed, Cara was very pleased with herself for giving them both something weighty to think about.

“I still say this is impossible.” muttered Mayfeld eventually.

“Not with your knowledge.” said Din. “That’s why you’re here.”

“We just have to think hard. And fast…” said Cara.

“Actually…” said Din “I think we should all take a break. Give ourselves a chance to come up with something new.”

“Did you just say _‘take a break’_?” asked Cara “You have changed.”

“We’re all tired. It’s been a long day. With some rest, we may be able to think clearer. Get the job done right for the kid’s sake. We can’t afford mistakes.” Din said.

“OK, maybe you haven’t changed that much.” conceded Cara “Take the break, to get the job done? I’m on board with that. I’ll get some more spotchka…”

Just then, the Crest took a big bump from something outside the ship. All three of them froze in alarm, but the intercom came to life and Tur’s voice came through _“Oi! The boys brought the Trivium! We can get to work!”_


	18. The Rapids

### The Rapids

Din Djarin was determined to ensure the planning progressed steadily, but it seemed that the initial introductions were the calm before the real storm.

Since his wife’s _Trivium_ was docked to his _Razor Crest_ (like two lovers adrift in space), the four adults and baby were finally able to spread out from the confines of his prison ship. The _Trivium_ was originally built for three crew and six passengers. The Pirate had modified the interior heavily (like everything else she owned) but it still had good facilities – proper quarters, a lounge, and a functioning medical bay with a Bacta tank.

Unfortunately, the improved living conditions and increased personal space did nothing to help keep the peace.

Mayfeld snapped at everyone, but he really seemed to hate Tur the most and took every opportunity to mock her. Tur ignored it for the most part (being used to it all her life), but occasionally the Triggerman would get under her skin, and when she did hit back, she really went for the cut. Not that she was savage like she was with Xi’an (a special case there), but she knew exactly how to push Mayfeld’s buttons. Din knew he hated being associated with the Empire, and it was a continually raw and exposed nerve. All the Pirate had to do was spit the word _“Imp!”_ or _“Trooper!”_ at him somewhere in a colourful insult, and the Triggerman would lose his shit.

Din, patience worn thin, _continually_ had to put Mayfeld in his place. Physically. It was the only way the moron was going to learn.

To their credit, Dune did her best to stop it and Tur tried her best to stay out of it. But Mayfeld kept testing him. He knew the women had taken to sneaking aboard the Crest just to vent. Probably for the best, because the last thing they needed was for the shock trooper to start swinging punches.

When they were focused on the work, it went reasonably well. When they took a break, all hell broke loose. Down time was more stressful than the job.

Mayfeld was resentful of the time Din spent with the Pirate, being kicked off the _Trivium_ occasionally when they wanted to be alone. The Triggerman challenged the necessity of this, arguing the captain’s quarters had a door, but his honest response (that his wife lacked the ability to remain quiet) seemed to irritate Mayfeld even more.

According to Mayfeld, they were leaving him and Cara to do all the work. This was not actually true, and the plain fact of it was that he was doing it because he was bored, trapped, and felt uncomfortably outnumbered.

Din knew this, and it infuriated him because he saw it as childish. However, rather than quell the animosity, his need to punish Mayfeld caused an escalation which led to a boiling point.

***

Mayfeld was fed-up to his fucking eyeballs with Mando’s never-ending shit.

He said something about the ink-head, which he didn’t feel was particularly insulting since it was largely true. The dumb bucket-head shoved him into carbon freeze for a few hours, apparently ‘to teach him a lesson’. Apart from the hours of his life he could never get back, the freezing and thawing saw Mayfeld on the vac tube all night.

In an act of well-earned retaliation, he hacked the Triv’s audio and intercom system. When the newlyweds next kicked them out for some alone time, he made his move. He patched the Triv’s outgoing intercom line via the Crest, and that’s when the Dog ships heard the broadcast on their Pirate band:

_‘Helloooo, filthy blood-drinkers! This is Razor Crest Radio! Today, for your perverted Pirate pleasure (live from the skraggy depths of the Trivium) the revolting, trash-mouthed, slut sounds of your kinky, bitch-cousin screaming the hatches out, while she fucks the cold-blooded Tin Caaaan!’_

None of this was patched through to the Triv, and the show continued with the star participants both hilariously unaware they were being overheard by a dozen Dog ships. While the Triggerman-turned-radio-host had intended to keep up a running commentary, there was little need. The Mando had been right about one thing: his wife _did_ lack the ability to keep quiet.

What Tin Can _hadn’t_ mentioned was that the sick bastard was just as vocal. They both _loved_ _to talk_. Insanely dirty. Highly descriptive too…. and from the sound of it, they fucked just dirty as they talked. Much to his delight, the show was far nastier than he could have ever anticipated. The Mando groaned like he was dying, and the dirty, ink-head slut moaned like a cheap whore – when the two of them weren’t grunting like animals in heat.

As the long and uninterrupted show finally came to a conclusion, he fed the sound of the audience’s wild cheering back at full volume through the Triv’s audio system.

That’s when it happened…

***

_“FUCK YOU, MAYFELD!!!!! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!”_

Cara was thinking quick.

Stashing the kid in his carrier, she charged into the cockpit of the Crest to intervene, but somehow the Mando had still beat her there. Bare-chested and bare-footed, in only his pants and helmet, Din was beating the Bantha crap out of Mayfeld in a rage.

The women separated the men. Cara was charged with keeping the kid and the Mando on the _Razor Crest_ while Din calmed down. Tur, who seemed oddly resistant to Mayfeld’s shit, went with the Triggerman to work on the bomb aboard the _Trivium._

***

Mayfeld certainly didn’t regret it, but he’d paid the price. Still, it had been totally worth it to get under the smug motherfucker’s skin.

“To be honest, I thought it would be you who would try to kill me, not Tin Can.” said Mayfeld as he gingerly touched his black eye with the hand not holding the hydro spanner.

“Yeah. His blaster whip is pretty mean too.” said Tur from where she sat working with her own tools.

“He’s hit you? Why in the hell did you marry him?” he asked in disbelief.

“Everyone tries to knock the shit out of me.” she said blandly.

“Yeah, you’re a delicate little thing, aren’t you? The shit that came out of your mouth today, woman? Sheesh! Tusken Raiders have more class!”

“Life’s too short to hold back. I was going for a personal best.” said the Pirate.

The Triggerman chuckled despite himself “You’re enthusiastic, I’ll give you that! Almost felt sorry for Tin Can towards the end. Poor bastard must have been drained drier than Jakku.”

Tur was snorting with laughter, so he went on “Still, I expected that inbred freak stuff from you, but the Mando sounded like a Wampa eating a Tauntaun… He sure was a surprise…”

“Send me a copy of the recording if you’ve still got it.”

“Oh, you’re _gross_!”

“What can I say? The Triv gets lonely sometimes.” she grinned.

“You know, I don’t get you. One minute you’re stabbing people, drinking blood, and giving me shit about being in the Empire. The next you’re totally fine if I broadcast your tainted sex life to your Clan, and we’re sitting here laughing about it!”

“Yeah, Din says I’m like water.”

“Like _water_? You’re more like a burst artery, lady.”

“I go where the riverbed of life takes me.”

Exasperated, Mayfeld pointed at her with his hand and said (mostly to himself) “Always talking in fucking riddles!”

“Look, Din and Cara are like fire. They know what they need to do in life, and they burn until the fuel runs out. Or until everything else is ash. But if you treat it right… fire can provide warmth, and light, and can guide lost souls from the dark.”

“Makes sense, I guess?” Mayfeld mumbled begrudgingly.

“You and I are like water.” he snorted in derision, but she ignored it and went on “We change to be what we need. One minute, liquid. The next, ice, or vapour. The riverbed keeps it secrets to itself, so the water has no idea where it’s really headed. But the rock only controls the water in the short term. It’s really the water that carves the canyon.”

Mayfeld stared at her for a bit. The hydro spanner in his hand was at a standstill.

He resumed work and said “You know, I still say you’re a psycho, but I have to admit - that shit about not knowing where you’re going sounds pretty damn familiar.”

“Conflicted, Mayfeld? Or having doubts?”

“Maybe a little of both. Maybe I’m just afraid that if I listen to your happy family routine and let my guard down, one of you will murder me in my sleep?”

“Maybe we’re afraid you’re going to turn us all over to the Empire?”

She hadn’t meant it as an insult - the ‘E’ word…

He knew that.

But he was sick to death of the dumb bitch throwing it in his face every chance she got.

“Listen, you thieving whore! I’m sick of this ‘Empire’ shit!” he shot, pointing his spanner angrily in her face.

Tur threw her own spanner down on the floor. _“Fuck you! You ugly, Hutt-faced bastard!”_

Both were on their feet. The next second, blasters were out. They started screaming obscenities in each other’s face. For a while the streams of swear words cancelled each other out as they echoed around in the _Trivium’s_ hold, but eventually they both had to draw breath.

Mayfeld yelled with a malicious grin “I bet you’ve fucked so many of your inbred cousins, your pussy looks like a dying Sarlacc!”

 _“Go choke on a Mynok, IMP!!!”_ Tur snarled.

‘Imp’. This time the dirty slut meant it. Mayfeld went wild with rage.

“ _Shut your ugly mouth, you stupid Pirate skrag!_ You don’t know _shit_! I _left_ the Empire! I’m not one of those fascist old fucks, still swinging their insignia around like it was their dick! Or one of their dumb, rusty-armoured thugs! **_I FUCKING LEFT!!!!!!” _**He had thrown the last words at her with all his weight.

“You told me.” Tur said quietly.

The blasters remained unfired and he didn’t feel the need to yell anymore, but he had built up a head of steam, and he’d be fucked if he wasn’t going to use the opportunity to get the message through this thick bitch’s skull.

“You people think you know me? Think I’m an asshole because of what you _think_ you know? You hear about all the dirty shit done, and never stop to think about _why_ it was done, whether we _wanted_ to do it, or what else we’ve done with our lives! None of you have had the decency to ask for my side of the fucking story!”

Tur spoke quietly again “I know what it’s like. We all do. No one gives a fuck what we have to say, and everybody hates us because of something they heard somewhere else. We’ve all done dirty shit.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” he sneered “Your hands are _drenched_ in blood too, aren’t they, ink-head?”

When Tur answered, it was quiet and dark “Yeah, they are soaked. So are Cara’s. Din’s more than all of us. My brother’s ink makes mine look like a child’s, and even the baby’s dangerous. And you know what? I love them all unconditionally.”

Mayfeld was silent. Her last words had just collided with everything else he was just thinking, and it was like his whole brain had stalled.

Resuming with a frown, but with no bite in her voice, the Pirate went on “So fucking what if you were an Imp? It’s helping us right now to plan this lunatic mission. We don’t care what you _were_. That’s why we don’t ask about the past. It’s not about where you’ve been, it’s about where you’re headed.”

Tur lowered her blaster and sat down, saying “Relax and flow. You’ll run clear eventually.”

He thought about this for a second, and then lowered his blaster too. In the intervening truce of silence, work resumed. Tur eventually resumed talking to him too, eyes still on the bomb.

“We’re all killers. Innocent people fear us. Bad people want us dead. We do _bad things_ , but sometimes bad things need to be done to bad people.”

“You think you’re some kind of hero now?” Mayfeld asked. He was sceptical at best.

“No! Heroes do good deeds. They rescue princesses and shit. They fight to save others. Defend. They’re not predators like us.”

“What the hell does that make us then?”

“Dunno. We’re the ones who fuck up the bad guys because they deserve it and we do it every chance we can. ‘Cause we like the sport.”

“Kill if you have to. Kill if they deserve it. Kill for sport. I don’t see much difference. It’s all killing.” he muttered.

“Heroes feel sorry for evil people. They try to _save them_ , because at the end of the day they can’t stomach the alternative, even when they _know_ it needs doing.”

“What do we do?”

“Make ‘em pay. Wipe ‘em out. Keep the second chances for ourselves.”

The work continued in silence after that. It gave Mayfeld time to think. After a while he realised that he _hadn’t_ been able to think lately. Maybe that’s why he felt so trapped? It wasn’t just the confined space; it was not being unable to process all the ridiculous bullshit that had been happening ever since he heard the initial blaster fire on the prison ship. He wasn’t sure when he had started talking out loud, but the Pirate kept her mouth shut for once, so he kept going.

“I haven’t had any fucking time to think about any of this shit. The Mando killed Ran and the others. I should hate him. I mean, I do hate the Tin Can, but not as much as I thought I would. He threw me in jail, busted me out of jail, says I’m part of the crew and then beats me to a pulp. I’ve got no idea what the guy’s thinking… I guess I should have seen the beating part coming, but this is some crazy stuff. A Pirate? A Dropper? A weird little kid who can move shit with its mind, and a Mandalorian? This whole plan? It’s fucking insane! Then I ask myself if this is really any crazier than any of the other shit I’ve done - whether or not the people are really any weirder – and I can’t even tell you the answer to that anymore.

I mean I’d say this crew is crazier than Ran’s. You’re all psychos as far as I’m concerned, but Ran’s crew never had spotchka, babies and family time. I don’t know what to make of any of it… Fuck! This is like being trapped in an asylum!” he stopped working and rubbed at his newly formed headache, willing it to fuck off.

“You’re in the white-water rapids, mate.” said Tur. “All you can do is flow until the rolling sensation stops.” she paused, and then added “You know we’re not forcing you to do this, right?”

“What?!!” Mayfeld was absolutely gobsmacked. “Hey, I had four doors remember! _Princess Wookiee_ and the _shirtless savage_ were the consolation prizes behind two of the doors, and if I remember rightly, you _personally_ threatened to uncork and decanter my chest for door number three!”

“We said we had a job. We said if you try to fuck with us, we’ll fuck with you. But Cara also said it was an opportunity, and you might have a good time. We just can’t afford to have you mess this up for us. _The kid!_ Of course we threatened you!”

The Pirate laughed. She almost looked normal.

“Fuck, mate! I thought you’d figure that out on your own!” Tur said “You’re not a prisoner, laser brain. We wanted you. The Mandalorian says you’re the _best fucking Triggerman he’s ever seen_. Helps you’re the only one out of Ran’s crew that wasn’t hell-bent on killing him…”

Mayfeld had a sudden moment of comprehension and said “He remembered that?”

“Yeah.” Tur grinned at him “Besides, you’re no ordinary Storm Trooper. We know that. _You’re_ what we need to save the kid.”


	19. The Devil in The Details

### The Devil in The Details

Din _should_ have been pleased. But he wasn’t. Not yet.

“I don’t know if it was the beating you gave him, or his time with the Pirate, but Mayfeld seems to be on board with the job now.” observed Cara to Din.

“She won’t tell me what happened, but whatever they talked about must have worked for the meantime. Once he gets past this job, Mayfeld is on his own. We’ll have to find a way to cover our tracks, but it will be good to be rid of him.”

“You think he’s doing it for the money, or you think he’s actually had a change of heart?”

“I don’t know. Tur’s persuasive when she wants to be, but I still don’t trust Mayfeld. Let’s play this one by ear.”

***

The Mandalorian looked at them all as they sat around in the _Trivium’s_ lounge. The bomb was ready. It was time for planning, practice and perfection.

He warned the group at large “Gideon was Marshall in the Imperial Security Bureau, the Empire’s secret intelligence arm. He’s ruthless and was instrumental in the Great Purge. We can’t afford to underestimate him.”

“Cara, Mayfeld and I, will dock the Razor Crest and board here.” he started to lay out the plan with an overview “We’re going to patch into their data and steal it. The Trivium will get the signal, then we use the artillery it’s packing to cover our retreat and set off the bomb.”

Cara was leading the ground mission and took up Din’s thread “Planting this bomb is a stealth mission. There’s only four of us, so it’s going to require splitting up so we can cover the ground we need. Mayfeld will have to patch in the hard line, and Tur will stay on the Trivium to bounce the signal. Din and I will take care of the bomb. We make our way back to the Crest, and hopefully by that time the data is out, we’re ready to leave and detonate.”

Mayfeld started on the technical details “Because of the data shield surrounding the ship, we have to get a patch connection hardwired inside to broadcast. The ISB developed these shields so that nothing gets sent to or from that Acclamator without their knowledge. The patch will allow us to bounce the signal out of the ship undetected.”

Din voiced something which had concerned him the entire time they had been planning the job. He prompted Mayfeld as casually as he could “It does present a communication problem though.”

The Triggerman explained “Can’t get the ISB data shields down, and even if we could, it would give us away immediately. We don’t want them finding us until we’re ready to blow our EMP. I’ll be the only one on the patch line to the Triv. Once we’re on board, we’ll piggyback their own internal network for the rest of us. All communications will need to go through me.”

The Mando knew it was this point (trusting Mayfeld to keep them all in contact with each other) which was the riskiest aspect of the entire mission.

Tur said “I’ll bounce the signal to the twelve Dog ships who will split up, which means more chances of getting the data out of range safely. Then… BOOM! Goodbye, Acclamator.”

“It’s a two-phase bomb.” Din said “A primary EMP will scrub the data, and a thermal explosion will take out the hardware. Clan can’t clean this. Response will be too quick, and the ship is too big. We can’t risk any drives being left intact. Both of our ships need to be out of range before we blow it.”

Cara continued “There are four remote detonators, each with two switches. One detonator for each of us. Bomb goes in the ordinance hold. If that’s where they’ve got the data stacks, that’s where we want to set it off.”

“Detonators? Why can’t we just flick a timer and leave? People lose detonators all the time.” asked Mayfeld.

“I do things with minimum risk.” said Tur.

 _“Minimum risk with a bomb?!”_ snorted Mayfeld.

The Pirate explained “Din and Cara’s strategy relies on patience and stealth. We can’t afford to burn their time. The four detonators ensure that even if three of us go down, one of us can still flick the switch.”

Din was secretly glad at his wife’s over-planning. In doing so, she had given them a safeguard in the event Mayfeld tried to sabotage them. Worst case scenario, they could ditch the Triggerman on the Acclamator and blow him up with it.

Cara continued “The EMP blast range is roughly the size of the ship itself, but Tur has over stacked the thermo blast to compensate for the empty space in the hold, and the size of the ship. This means the bomb itself is _big_. We’ll sneak it in hidden inside an old Imp storage container. If something happens, we can abandon the Imp container and hopefully it can hide in plain sight for a while.

If our guesses are correct and its data stacks, there will be a lot of empty space. That explosion must be big enough to destroy the entire ship even if they take desperate measures such blowing hatches to vent the blast. After the EMP, they will be on to us, and may anticipate our next move.”

Mayfeld confirmed “We’ve probably got about 5 minutes before back up arrives.”

After a moment of thought, Din warned them all “This is a big score. We’re dealing with Ex-ISB intelligence experts. They’re not going to take it lying down. They’ll start purging air if they think they can contain the blast. They’ll suffocate half their troops to save the rest. Regardless, we should make sure we’re well out of range when it blows. If for some reason the hold is full, it will increase the blast radius.”

Mayfeld obliged and asked what they were all thinking “How big of a blast?”

“Yeah, about that…” said Tur, scratching the side of her head where the stubble was growing back “If the hold is empty, and they take suppression steps? Size of the first Death Star.”

“Shit…” Din was both impressed and alarmed “What if they don’t?”

“Packed with regular cargo, and no suppression system? Twice or three times that.”

“What do you mean by ‘ _regular cargo’_?” he asked warily. He had scented danger.

“Rothana Heavy Engineering made this ship, and RHE have always been into all sorts of dark shit for the Empire. There could be some cutting-edge tech in there.”

“Like what?!” asked Mayfeld.

“I have no idea, but if it’s something like a super-reactor? Some freaky, new, unstable shit? Mate, we are _fucked_!” said Tur.

Cara asked cautiously “Define ‘fucked’ please, soldier?”

“Bigger than the _second_ Death Star. Truth is, knowing the Imps and those RHE fuckers, we have _no idea_ what’s in that ship. If it’s worst nightmare stuff? Blast could be the size of Tatooine! You _need_ to eyeball it when you get there.”

“That _is_ ‘fucked’.” said Cara “Not knowing how big that blast will be is going to make fleeing the scene difficult. I need a drink. Anyone else?”

Din looked around at the other two. All three of them had raised their hands. The whole situation was ‘fucked’.

***

The _Razor Crest_ was safely docked and cloaked. They were invisible to the Acclamator-II, and ready to begin.

Mayfeld went first in a stolen Trooper uniform. He was always a pro on the field, and even Cara managed to throw him and impressed look as the three of them snuck aboard.

Technical knowledge coming to the fore, he had the patch in exactly as planned. The data upload began without a hitch. He kept a continuous commentary to keep Din, Cara and Tur updated on each other’s progress, since he was the only one now who could hear all three of them.

 _‘Uhl chirq khoehng’_ Tur called Mayfeld in jest down the line. ‘The crimson king’, or ‘king of the redheads’ (which seemed to be an in-joke between the two women that made him suspicious). Ironically, it had been the crazy Pirate who convinced him that the rest of the team valued his contribution. Looks like the blood-drinker had been right: they did need him.

***

They took the bomb via the mostly empty service route Mayfeld had indicated on the plans.

Din was exceedingly cautious as they headed steadily towards the ordinance hold. Technically this was Dune’s mission, but with such high personal stakes in this game, he felt twice as responsible for its success.

With slow and careful progress, they had made it the entire way to the hold without incident. Then….

“I’ll check out the situation.” said Cara. She walked toward the hold, saying “OK, this looks….” but her voice faded away.

Cara’s chest started to rise and fall faster as her breathing became heavier. The Dropper’s eyes became wide, and her hands were now balled into fists by her sides in a manner that suggested that she was unaware of doing it.

“Cara….”

The seasoned shock trooper seemed to be paralysed with fear.

Din’s mind was racing. Was it a super weapon? A monster? A battalion of troops? He doubted it, because Dune had seen them all.

As the Mandalorian ran over to the Dropper, he followed her wide and terrified eyes. He understood, with a rush of sudden and blood-chilling horror, exactly what had turned her to stone.

It was children.

Hundreds of children. Locked in cages.

Tubes and wiring ran everywhere into some unknown, gigantic, hideous machine. Whatever this monstrous contraption was, it was connected to frightened, imprisoned children. It looked a bit like Bespin’s Cloud City, if it suddenly plummeted to the bottom of Sith hell.

And it felt… weird in here… but also… somehow familiar… like there was a strange energy in the air… it reminded him of… the kid…

Not too far away on a table, Din saw something else. More cages. Empty cages. Ones waiting to be used.

It hit him like lightning, and he understood in a sudden rush what it all meant.

**_The kid!_ **

They had stupidly brought him here with them. _He was currently aboard the Razor Crest._


	20. The Mandalorian’s Transcript

### The Mandalorian’s Transcript

Cara: …Din? What is that thing?

Din: This was a mistake. We need to leave. Now!

Mayfeld: What’s wrong? What happened?

Din: We’re aborting! Now!

Mayfeld: Not your call, Mando. Dune, this is your party, what’s the deal? Speak to me… _(I don’t know, they won’t tell me... Shut the fuck up and let me listen!)_

Cara: We’re aborting….

Mayfeld: Aborting? Why!? The data’s going! We’ve got to blow this, or we’re exposed! What’s the problem? Guys? Come on, somebody speak to me! ( _Not you, Skrag!... I AM trying to get an answer out of him!)_

Din: We can’t blow it. We’re going to the back-up plan and hiding the bomb in plain sight.

Mayfeld: What do you mean we can’t blow it? ( _Hey! Hey! Hey!!.... I’m asking him!!!)_ Give me something here guys, or she’s going to tear my ear off.

Cara: Its children…… Hundreds of them…. In cages.

Mayfeld: What the fuck!!!!? Hundreds of children in cages? What the FUCK do you mean!!!?? ( _Children. I know!.... Hundreds of the... Of course it’s bad!...... Fucked if I know???.... I’m on it!.... They’re going to the back-up plan…..)_

Cara: We need a good hiding spot, Mayfeld. Any thoughts?

Mayfeld: Try the speeder hangar to your left there, Princess. Should be out of sight.

Cara: Thanks, Rusty. Going there now.

Din: Tell Tur we need your ear, and she will have to wait for answers. So will you, Mayfeld. We’ll explain later… If it’s even possible.

Mayfeld: Copy that. Just tell me what you need. _(They need an assist… Just keep listening... You’ll KNOW when I’m taking to you... Don’t worry, I got this.)_

Cara: Wish this thing wasn’t so damned heavy.

Din: Tatooine, remember? Keep pushing. We’re almost there….

Cara: This looks good….

Din: OK, let’s go.

Mayfeld: Hurry up guys…. I’m almost done. _(Hey there, Inky, how’s the upload?... Copy that…)._ Pirate’s almost done too.

Cara: Coming back now. We’re going silent unless we need you.

Mayfeld: _(Thanks, Inky. Nice work.)_ We’re done, guys, move it. Tur’s outgoing… Taking down the line now…

***BLASTER FIRE*********************************************

Mayfeld: Fuck! I’m blown! Party’s over!!!...

***Static****

Mayfeld: _(No! It won’t help!…)_

***Static****

Mayfeld: _(Do NOT start bombing the ship!!...)_

***Static********

Cara: Mayfeld!... _Mayfeld!…_

***Static*******

Din: If they know about him, they will find the Crest, _and the kid!_

Cara: We can’t even contact the Triv... Let’s move.

***Running. Static. Clicking***

Mayfeld: ……DUNE!... Get to the Crest….

***Unintelligible***

Mayfeld: I’m done, but it’s not!... I’m…….

***Static****************************

Din: Sounds like Mayfeld is on his own.

Cara: He said the Crest isn’t compromised. Should we trust him?

Din: We don’t have a choice.

Cara: Should we try and help?

Din: No.

Cara: OK, we stay on mission. Let’s get to the Crest and get out of here. I guess this is the end of the line for Mayfeld.


	21. The Trivium's Transcript

### The Trivium’s Transcript

Mayfeld: _(What’s wrong? What happened?)_

Tur: What’s happening, Mayfeld?

Mayfeld: _(Not your call, Mando.)_

Tur: Mayfeld?

Mayfeld: _(Dune, this is your party, what’s the deal? Speak to me…)_

Tur: Mayfeld!

Mayfeld: I don’t know, they won’t tell me!

Tur: Find out!

Mayfeld: Shut the fuck up and let me listen! _( …... Aborting? Why!? The data’s going! We’ve got to blow this, or we’re exposed! What’s the problem?)_

Tur: What the fuck is going on over there?

Mayfeld: _(Guys? Come on, somebody speak to me!)_

Tur: I am!

Mayfeld: Not you, Skrag!

Tur: No shit! Get a fucking answer out of him!

Mayfeld: I AM trying to get an answer out of him! _( ..….. What do you mean we can’t blow it?)_

Tur: They’re not blowing??

Mayfeld: Hey! Hey! Hey!!

Tur: What’s in that hold Mayfeld??!!

Mayfeld: I’m asking him!!! _(Give me something here guys, or she’s going to tear my ear off…. What the fuck!!!!? Hundreds of children in cages? What the FUCK do you mean!!!??)_

Tur: Did you just say children?

Mayfeld: Children. I know!...

Tur: In cages?

Mayfeld: Hundreds of the…

Tur: Oh shit! This is bad!

Mayfeld: Of course it’s bad!

Tur: What are they doing to them?

Mayfeld: Fucked if I know??

Tur: Shit! **The kid!**

Mayfeld: I’m on it!

Tur: The bomb?

Mayfeld: They’re going to the back-up plan _( …… Try the speeder hangar to your left there, Princess. Should be out of sight….. Copy that….. Just tell me what you need)._

Tur: Update!

Mayfeld: They need an assist…

Tur: Copy.

Mayfeld: Just keep listening...

Tur: What if…

Mayfeld: You’ll KNOW when I’m taking to you... Don’t worry, I got this….

Tur: I know you do.

***Silence*********

Mayfeld: _(Hurry up guys…. I’m almost done)_ Hey there, Inky, how’s the upload?

Tur: Ahead of schedule.

Mayfeld: Copy that _…. (Pirate’s almost done too)._

Tur: Scratch that – I am done. Signal’s outgoing. I’m in phase two.

Mayfeld: Thanks, Inky. Nice work. _(We’re done, guys, move it. Tur’s outgoing… Taking down the line now…)_

***BLASTER FIRE*************************************************

Mayfeld: Fuck! I’m blown! Party’s over!!!...

Tur: You OK there, mate? Need a distraction? I can start shooting early…

Mayfeld: No! It won’t help!

***BLASTER FIRE**********************************

Tur: Mayfeld!

***BLASTER FIRE**********************************

Tur: MAYFELD!... That’s it, I’m dropping now…

Mayfeld: Do NOT start bombing the ship!

Tur: What the fuck is going on Mayfeld?

Mayfeld: I’m leading them away from the Crest! Away from the kid!

Tur: Has it been compromised?

Mayfeld: No!

Tur: Good! Tell them to get back there now. Find another exit. I’ll try and grab you myself.

Mayfeld: Copy!

***BLASTER FIRE******************************************

Tur: Rusty?...

Mayfeld: I’m OK! Stupid Imp outfit…. Hang on. They’re trying to jam me. I gotta fix this…

***Running. Static. Clicking***

Mayfeld: _(DUNE!... Get to the Crest….)_

***Unintelligible***

Mayfeld: _(I’m done, but it’s not!... I’m……)_

***Static********************

Mayfeld: Shit! Sounds like Dune and the Mando are on their own.

Tur: If the Crest isn’t compromised, they should be fine. Just don’t lead them back to it. You’ve got this.

Mayfeld: I don’t have a choice.

Tur: We stay on mission. Once they’ve got the kid, we’ll get you too.


	22. The Fallen Man

### The Fallen Man

Din and Cara were on their own.

Ahead – he saw them first - a group of Imps. A dozen. Thankfully, they had not been seen. They could now take them by surprise.

He looked at Dune. They were supposed to be hiding, and not killing, but with Mayfeld already compromised and the child at risk, they had little choice. They needed to get to the Crest immediately. He nodded, and she responded the same.

A couple of the Imps had strayed too far from the rest of the herd. One was standing close, near a conveniently dark side corridor too. He stalked his first kill in a long time. It was then he realised he had not killed a man since before crashing the Crest. He was hungry. Very. Very. Hungry.

Bera had said it once to him, sitting in the dark – _his favourite prey was man_.

The knife found the larynx before it could make a noise, and the body was pulled around the corner before anything was noticed out of place. The convulsing Trooper’s life left him. Thinking of his wife, and the burning look she often got in her eyes, he withdrew something small and shiny from one of his pockets.

Cara had caught up to him. She was grinning, holding her own blade and covered in blood. It was time for the two of them to finish the hunt.

***

They made it to the Crest, and Din fired it up (after a panicked run to check on the kid).

He could now communicate with the _Trivium_. Mayfeld was not around. The baby was, and that was all that mattered. They had almost handed the infant right to the evil bastards on a platter.

The Mando realised he had been stupid to trust the Triggerman. If Mayfeld got caught, it was unlikely he would be welcomed back to the fold by the Imps, and Din couldn’t help but wonder how much torture he could take before cracking. If he was stuck on that ship with no way off, it was only a matter of time before he talked.

The Crest’s coms and visuals came to life, and as soon as they did, Din noticed something off.

“Where are you going, Tur?” Din had just seen the _Trivium_ move unexpectedly on the screens as they parted the tiny _Razor Crest_ from the Acclamator.

 _“Where have you been?!”_ screamed the Pirate’s voice from the speaker “Mayfeld needs help!”

“What??” shouted Cara over his shoulder into the console “He’s alive??!!”

The Mando had more pressing matters to worry about than the Triggerman’s survival “Leave him!” he ordered his wife “Mayfeld is not important – the kid is!”

“ _Ihn Corellisi nyeve min bhiq suman ehin nyiad!_ ” Tur shouted. _A Corellian never turns his back on someone in need_.

“Do not go back for Mayfeld!” demanded Din.

“We need him. _The child needs him!_ ” barked Tur “We can’t just let him die.”

“What’s happening?” said Cara.

“He’s in the shit because he was leading them away from you!” Tur said. “I’ve still got him on the hard patch – they mustn’t have found his work, because it’s still transmitting to the outside, even if they jammed his internal coms. Bastard seems to be cutting them down like a pro, but I don’t know how long he can keep it up for…”

The Mando’s wife was obstinate, so he told her firmly “Turhaya! No! Remember once you were willing to let _me die!_ ”

It seemed the Pirate wasn’t having it, because she threw it immediately back in his face “You made your choice, and I respected it! Mayfeld _hasn’t_ made that choice! _Sahs’lah!_ ”

 _Sahsahlah_ – The place of wise fools. It was Tur’s way of telling him ‘I have made up my mind and I will not change it’.

Din said one word “Fine.”

The YT accelerated, and Tur threw in “This is a two-ship mission, Mando.”

“Shit!” he swung the Crest around too.

“What are you doing!!??” screamed Cara to Din _“Fuck Mayfeld! The kid!”_

Din snapped in his frustration “She’s right! We can’t leave him. He could talk. We may need him again, Cara!”

“Damn it!” said Cara. “Alright then, Pirate. Tell us how we’re going to play this.”

Tur said cryptically “Let’s hunt some Akk Dog, Beskar. Bait and hunt.”

Cara was perplexed, but Din understood. He prepared to do their dance again.

***

“Location sent!” panted Mayfeld to the _Trivium_ as he ran “Now, get me the fuck out of this nightmare, blood-drinker! I can’t breathe in this fucking uniform!”

The Triggerman had dropped all the Imps after a savage, but short-lived blaster battle, and was now in a deserted service corridor. He was safe for now, but a long way from the nearest hatch.

In his head he did the math – he could try and take a short cut, but there was a greater risk he would run into trouble. From what he could tell, they suspected he was a stowaway. Despite the sensitivity of the data, and the horrors that Din and Cara had witnessed in the ordinance hold, they seemed to think of him as nothing more than a pesky Womp Rat that eventually would trap itself.

If they had known _who_ that pesky vermin was, they may have hunted him down with more urgency. They were not doing too bad, considering the gigantic shit storm the other two said was on board.

“Just keep playing me the sounds of that perverted heavy breathing.” said Tur “As long as I know you’re running full tilt, and not dead, we should be fine. It’ll be the Crest that’s coming for you now, and you know the Mando isn’t going to hang around long... one shot….”

“Copy… one shot…”

Mayfeld pushed his legs harder than he ever had. His lungs were on fire. The display on his wrist said that if he didn’t keep running hard, he’d miss the Mando Express and be trapped here forever in this realm of hell.

She was right - if he let off the throttle for even a second, he was going to die.

***

If the Acclamator decided to go into hyperspace, it would take a full two minutes before the engines would be ready. In order to distract the Imps from the _Razor Crest_ , the _Trivium_ opened-up her gun turrets and Tur shouted “Two minutes!!”

She could not afford to use heavy artillery in case she accidentally _did_ blow up the ship. A ship that she now knew contained hundreds of innocent children, into which they had just hidden an insanely over-stacked bomb (which had the potential to wipe out everything in within a totally unpredictable blast radius).

While the Crest found the Triggerman, it would be the Pirate that would play the bait. Predictably, TIE fighters came barrelling out of the dock. Six of them. Double the number for a normal dog fight, they went screaming after her in two separate formations.


	23. The Triggerman’s Transcript

### The Triggerman’s Transcript

Tur: Mayfeld! Move your ass! Your ride is coming!

Mayfeld: already…. running…….

***Heavy breathing. Running*************

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*********************************************

Mayfeld: I’m nearly…. there… slut guts!

Tur: Keeping running, dick breath. You’re doing great.

***Running******

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*****************************

Tur: _(Five!)_

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*****************************************

Tur: _(Four!)_

Mayfeld: What…. the fuck…. you packing?

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*************************************************************

Tur: 1,500-terawatt turbo lasers. What’s the matter? Liking how it sounds, you sick fuck?

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*************************************************************

Tur: _(Three!)_

Mayfeld: Shit yeah!...... sounds brutal…. closing now…

***Running. Breathing*******

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*****************************************

Tur: _(Two! …… I know they’ve spotted you. Keep dodging…)_ You still ok, Mayfeld?

***YT ENGINES**************************************

***BLASTER FIRE**********************************************************************

Mayfeld: YEAH!... I THINK SO!!... BUT I GOT A LOT OF COMPANY BLOCKING THE EXIT!!...

***BLASTER FIRE ********************************************************************

Tur: Keep firing!

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE*************************************************

Tur: _(One!... Hold on!!….)_

***BLASTER FIRE**************************************************************

Mayfeld: WHERE ARE THEY?!!

Tur: Hold on, Mayfeld!!

***BLASTER FIRE*************************************************************

Mayfeld: HURRY UP, BLOOD-DRINKER!!

Tur: Shut the fuck up! _( ……… Then learn how to evade, and that won’t happen!!!)_

Mayfeld: INKY, YOU WHORE BAG!! HURRY UP!!

***BLASTER FIRE******************************************************

Tur: Mayfeld, you jerk-off!! Shut it!!

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE********************************************

***BLASTER FIRE***********************************************

Mayfeld: HURRY THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!

***YT ENGINES. TURRET FIRE**************************

***EXPLOSION**********

Tur: _(You’re clear! Get him!)_ Get ready for it!

***BLASTER FIRE***********************************************************

Cara: Hey! Assholes!

***BLASTER FIRE*****************************************************************

Din: Move it, Mayfeld!

***BLASTER FIRE. SCREAMING*****************************************************

***Running*******

Mayfeld: About fucking time, Tin Can! Thanks for the bail out.

***Clanking*******

Cara: Hatch is closed! You, OK Mayfeld?

Mayfeld: Yeah. Thanks, Princess.

Tur: Oi!

Din: Let’s get out of here.

Tur: Oi!!!

Mayfeld: What?

Tur: You need to leave now!

Din: What is it?

Tur: Star Destroyer.

Cara: What??!

Tur: You heard. Get out of here.

Mayfeld: Inky, you moron! Don’t do it….

Tur: You just said it yourself - _Inky!_ I eat these fuckers for breakfast. You don’t. Leave now.

Din: TURHAYA! NO!

Tur: You give me that ‘Turhaya’ shit again, and I will _rip off your fucking helmet off with your head still in it!_

Cara: Din! Listen to her!

Din: It’s too dangerous!

Tur: _I’m_ too dangerous, and I will tear this motherfucker apart in record time…

**_*S_ ilence***

Tur: Now go home with our son, Din. Respect my decision. _Don’t make me tell you to leave again..._

**_*S_ ilence*********


	24. The Destroyer Run

### The Destroyer Run

_‘Don’t make me tell you to leave again...’_

The words stung in the Mando’s ears. It was a small glimpse of the pain he had caused her in the past, but it still hurt. He would respect her wishes, even if it meant leaving her to the mercy of her own gods.

_‘To honour what you fight for? To respect your life’s work? Yes, I would have let you die.’_

***

Tur was blown away. It was a fucking _Star Destroyer._

How could they have been so bloody stupid? A ship as important as the Acclamator wasn’t running TIE fighters as their only protection, but it had been years since anyone had seen an Imperial Star Destroyer intact. Where had it even come from?

There was a method to taking out a Star Destroyer, and it was pretty simple. Hit it over the head, and then gut it. There’s a nice little space on the top of a Destroyer where the critical systems and command areas sat right next to each other. If you can get in there without taking too much ion cannon fire, it normally does enough damage to send them into a panic and distract them from the real kill.

There are two main hangar bays on a Destroyer. One is toward the front, and not really near anything important. The other is more toward the middle. Drop enough explosive magic in that mid-ship bay, then you might just be able to rip through all the Imp quarters next door and damage the next section over: the power cells. Hit that shit right, and you’ll light up the night sky with an explosion so big, it’ll fire your jetpack up just watching it!

It always helps to soften up the hangar wall with the ion cannons first, to direct the blast force where you need it to go. Requires a tricky bit of drifting, but it’s always fun. Over-stacking your arsenal is a must, but any bomb builder worth their toolkit should be able to handle that.

***

_(ACTIVATE TRIVIUM PILOT VOICE COMMAND: PASS CODE - ZERO NINE FIVE SEVEN EWOK.)_

_(Voice command artillery. Hyper drive. Navigation. Voice command co-pilot control. Retain manual main pilot control.)_

_(Cross check ordinance: Proton torpedoes – one, two. Plasma bombs – three, four, five, six, seven. Bunker buster - eight. Ion cannons – nine, ten.)_

_(Shut down power to: Non-essential support. Cargo. Quarters. Lounge. Escape pods. Med. Activate supplementary shield boosters.)_

***ENGINES*******************************************

Well, say good morning, Imps! It’s breakfast time, and this Pirate is hungry…

***ENGINES*****************************************************************

***TURRET FIRE ********************************************************************

***STAR DESTROYER ION CANNON FIRE *******************************

***ENGINES ****************

Predictable! _(Power to front deflectors)_

***STAR DESTROYER ION CANNON FIRE**************************************************

***IMPACT BLAST **********************

Fuck! That was close, but two can play that game…

***TURRET FIRE. ENGINES *******************************************************

_(Target rear of system section sector one nine one. Lock in proton torpedoes one and two.)_

***ENGINES************************

_(Fire one and two!)_

***Silence***

***EXPLOSION****************************************************************

***TIE FIGHERS*********************************************************************

***ALARM BLARING*****

SHIT!! _(All power rear deflectors!)_ You boys got your TIEs out fast!

***TIE FIGHERS*********************************************************************

***ENGINES. TURRET FIRE***************************

Let’s see if you can keep up, then….

***ENGINES. TURRET FIRE********************************

***TIE FIGHERS************************************************************************

_(Confirm enemy hangar shield status ….. )_ Perfect - wide open.

***ENGINES. TURRET FIRE**********************************************************

_(Load all unarmed 3 through 8. Prepare for drop and delayed remote trigger. Ready and arm cannons 9 and 10.)_

***TURRET FIRE***********************************************************

Clear a path, motherfuckers! I’m coming straight through your loading zone. Move! Move! MOVE!!!

***ENGINES*************************************************

***TURRET FIRE*************************************************

***ENGINES********************

C’mon, c’mon. Drift, you bitch... Sideways…. Let’s bust a hole in that wall _(Fire 9 and 10!)_

***HEAVY ION CANNON FIRE ********************************************************

***EXPLOSION*********

C’mon, baby! Turn back around the right way....... Turn, turn, turn…

 ***ENGINES** **************************************************************

_(Ready hyper drive... Drop all 3 through 8.)_

***ENGINES. TURRET FIRE. *************************************************************

Exit, exit. C’mon. c’mon…….

***ENGINES************************************************************

_(Remote detonate in three!... Engage hyperdrive!)_

***EXPLOSION. HYPERDRIVE ENGINES*****************************************************

***Silence***********************************

***Clicking. Switches flicking***********

_(Restore all power and systems to custom setting 3. Activate auto pilot.)_

***Clicking. Footsteps*******

_(Commence safety checks. Bring up main engineering dashboard and run diagnostics.)_

***Unintelligible. Clanking********

Fucking out of spotchka _again_ … Bloody Cara!

***Silence*********

_(Set new course: Takodana Castle. Auto pilot.)_

***

As it turned out, Turhaya’s gods did not wish for her to die that day. Had the Mandalorian been able to watch (like he did with the deer hunt) he would have realised that when it came to blowing-up Star Destroyers, she was a total fucking pro.


	25. The Intermission

### The Intermission

_“Saltan valoramosa n telval mord.”_

In Olys Corellisi, it means 'Assumption is the first step into a shallow grave'. _“Yke hyon fhars oblivyn cnous oblivyn_ ” means 'He who fears nothing, knows nothing'. So went the circular discussion between Bera Hundteth and Din Djarin.

Bera was adamant that Tur was fine and had probably taken the long way home to ensure she wasn’t followed. Probably in a cantina somewhere playing Sabacc for chump change waiting for the coast to clear. Best guess? She probably went to Maz Kanata’s castle on Takodana. Tur had a real soft spot for the little old orange lady with the enormous glasses. The ‘pirate queen’ offered sanctuary to all outlaws who came through her doors and had taken a liking to his sister.

He knew Tur could handle herself and told the Mando she was prone to taking these kinds of precautions. He also said she was not used to explaining her actions to an over-protective husband. Din was risking another bottle barrage by questioning his sister’s capability on the job, but in the face of the bounty hunter’s aggravating behaviour, Bera thought he’d let the moron find that fact out for himself.

The Mandalorian was boiling with anxiety, and in his egotistical stubbornness, refused to listen to reason. On the third occasion he tried to take off in the Crest to go and look for her, two Dogs were sent to physically take him back to the cabin. A major altercation ensued, during which Dune knocked out two war boys, Mayfeld got put in a headlock for some reason, and one of the Clan nearly took out Bera by accident with the Mando’s flame thrower.

Bera put an immediate stop to it. His limit reached, he said he would take the Clan hunting, and ordered the Mando to take his friends and the baby to the hot pools to relax. He then took Din aside and explained that if Turhaya was not back by sunrise, he would go looking himself. The bounty hunter was not to leave the child. If his sister was staying away from Offmap, it meant the Imps were sniffing around.

As the sun set and Bera watched the _Razor Crest_ depart, he wasn’t quite relieved. He thought his brother-in-law might still risk himself, but at least having the baby with him might prevent the idiot doing something completely stupid.

***

His wife had always said they shouldn’t name the baby until they knew his species. Cara said it wasn’t her place to think of one and had simply settled on ‘Squirt’ as her favoured nickname. Din personally felt labels were unimportant, and of course Mayfeld didn’t care either way.

So, they all just called him ‘The Kid’.

Gods! The Kid! It seemed that the harder the Mando tried to hold on to the little guy, the more shit storms he caused. The more shit he caused, the more he _wanted_ to hold on. At least he could hold him now in the hot pool. He looked at the little scamp. He was splashing and giggling, and having a ball, completely unaware of all the blood spilt on his behalf.

Din wasn’t having a ball.

***

“Relax.” said Cara “I’m sure she’s fine. She does this all the time.” Despite the mushrooms and the warm water, Din still looked like he was wound tighter than an angry Sith Lord.

“I hate to admit it, Mando…” chimed in Mayfeld “…but the Night Sister has a point.” It helped that Mayfeld was so high that all the venom had gone from his bite, and he said everything with a grin.

Cara, who normally would have punched Mayfeld in the face for the slight, tonight found the jab at her expense funny and snorted laughter. “Ha! Good one!”

Dune had a momentary understanding of how the Pirate had been handling the Triggerman all this time. By continually venting small amounts of frustration at each other through the banter, they were able to get along without exploding. Not Cara. She found the constant talk aggravating and preferred overall to hit Mayfeld in the mouth if he vexed her.

“It’s about time!” said Din unexpectedly.

The Dropper and the Triggerman both looked at the Mando, but he was already leaving the pool with The Kid.

The Mando tapped his helmet, and then pointed skywards as the _Trivium’s_ engines roared overhead. The beast landed, the ramp descended, and the Pirate (who didn’t even appear) called out “LET’S GO, BESKAR!!!”

Din hastily pulled on pants, grabbed his gear, popped The Kid in the carrier, and made to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going? Is something wrong?” asked Mayfeld.

The bounty hunter shouted over the engines as he walked away “ _Razor Crest Radio!_ Bring my ship back in one piece!”

Mayfeld gave a disgusted look. Cara giggled “That’s another twenty credits he owes me! We all knew she’d be fine…”

As the _Trivium_ took off again and the pools became quiet, Cara was still giggling. “I can’t believe we’re still alive after that. I have to admit - that was some mighty fine work you did on mission.” She gave him one of her trademark grins.

“You know, you’re alright when you loosen up a bit and have a laugh, Princess.” admitted Mayfeld.

“Twenty credits you can’t resist making me punch you in the mouth tonight.” challenged Cara.

“Twenty credits? You’re on!” said Mayfeld “I can’t get over what you two did today either. That was impressive. I’ll never forget the sight of you covered in blood, mowing down those Imps to help me escape.”

The shock trooper was flattered. The Triggerman was looking at her in a way that said much more than he had intended. “It was my pleasure.” she said with a smile. She thought she would play along and see where this went.

“Was it now?” teased Mayfeld “What about the fist fight with the two Pirates? That was so…….” He seemed unable to continue his summation of her performance with his words, but he was giving her that look again.

She returned his look with one of her own, before offering “Brutal?”

“Yeah…. _devastating_ …. So, this bet? Basically, if I lose, I’m going to pay you to damage me. Doesn’t seem right…”

She knew she had already won the bet “It’s right if you do it right...”


	26. The Pay Day

### The Pay Day

After Tur lavished the tiny child with kisses and cuddles, he was so happy (and tired from the drama of the day) that he drifted right off to sleep in the second room of the cabin.

Trying to track that Acclamator down had been a pain, so she left Offmap to do the groundwork in borrowed Dog ship, while the boys worked on the _Trivium_.

The Clan did more than fix her ship. The cabin’s second room was converted to a nursery, ensuring the tiny child wanted for nothing when it finally arrived home. They even collected a box of spare control knobs just for the little squirt.

The heat was about to escalate with the bombing brewing on the _Trivium_ , and the Clan had been reluctant to settle in on the small moon. Bera decided he could do with new quarters: she had made him too used to home comfort, so the solution for everyone’s sanity was to build the ‘junk hotel’.

Set not too far from the cabin, made in the belly of a gutted old freighter, the junk hotel housed several quartering rooms. Without setting up camp, the Clan could leave their ships fully packed, and remain prepared to evacuate at a moment’s notice. They would not suffer another Burning Day.

A smaller ship had been gutted in similar fashion and annexed to the hangar as a kind of war room. Offmap became their base of operations with Pirates coming and going as they needed.

Tur’s lonely solitude had turned dramatically around. 

***

Din was feeling particularly pleased with himself. He was about to get into his brother-in-law’s good books, and his wife’s pants, in one easy manoeuvre.

Not that he needed help with the latter…

“I can’t believe you’ve got it!” whispered Tur in amazement, closing the nursery door behind her on the way out “Bera will be _fucking thrilled!_ It’s not going to be very nice after this long, but it’ll do.”

The shirtless savage leant back against the kitchen table and shook the vial of dark, reddish liquid at her teasingly “Planned ahead. Couldn’t do it there, and I knew you’d want to see it.”

“Oh yeah… I want to see it...” she shot him an evil grin. As she walked over, she unwittingly grabbed handfuls of the waistband of her pants at the hips, as if desperately grappling with an overwhelming urge to be free of them. She was looking at him like she might pounce on him right now.

Good. He wanted her overheated, because he was. He was _very happy_ to see her alive. There was a reason he hadn’t bothered putting his shirt back on after the pools.

The Pirate reached him, and her hands now turned their attention to his own waistband. She used it to pull their bodies sharply together. Unable to stand still in her excitement, she fidgeted and wiggled against him. She was so animalistic, and so intense, it made parts of him hurt.

“Well…” he said, as he took out the vial’s stopper “… _Chakta Sai Kae_.” It was a Corellian toast. He downed the small amount of coagulating Trooper blood he had taken from the dark corridor aboard the Acclamator. It had been his first kill since joining the Clan.

Din swallowed and said with a grimace “It’s disgusting…” but his wife silenced him, taking what was left in his mouth with her tongue.

She ran her hands over his shirtless back, touching every inch she could get to. If he touched _her_ right, it caused her to dig her nails into his skin in the best possible way. He pushed himself hard against her, and she arched her back with an involuntary growl. As his hand found its way into her shirt, she grabbed handfuls of his hair and kissed him harder. It was his turn to growl.

When the Pirate was finally done, she leaned back from him and said “Congratulations, Mando. You’re a War Dog now.”

“It’s really not so bad, you know, once you get past the taste.”

“I _love_ the taste…”

Her hands had decided on a place to settle. Years of flying stick had made her remarkably ambidextrous. But just as the bounty hunter decided it was time to collect on her puck, his wrist tracker bleeped to life on the table.

***

“If you want to take it up with them, be my guest, but I kind of think you deserved it. To be honest, I couldn’t care less.”

“So, what happens now?” asked Mayfeld awkwardly as he watched the Dropper do up her boots.

“Nothing.” said Cara. While they were at the pools, she had eagerly divulged that she had a serious thing for redheads and loved inflicting pain. He didn’t need a second invitation to take the Crest back to the empty junk hotel.

“That’s it? Just forget it happened?” he said, relieved.

“I didn’t say you had to forget about it, just get over it. I’m not looking for love, Triggerman. It was just a bit of fun, but there’s no point keeping it a secret…” she waived a hand at the intercom.

“I think you’ve been spending too much time around the Pirate. But for a while there I was worried you were going to make a thing out of this. I’m not looking for complications.”

“Then we shouldn’t have problems working crew together. Things continue as usual. No fuss.”

Mayfeld was slightly worried that they _wouldn’t_ continue as usual, but a thought occurred to him that if shit _did_ somehow remain cool, there could be further chances for punishment in the future.

Wasn’t it the exotic goddess of pain herself who had said there might be opportunity to have a good time? He might have to back off the insults to keep her softened up. Not that he had a love thing for her at all, but she was _hot,_ and she fucked like Star Destroyer – devastatingly brutal.

Princess was clearly experienced in using her combative skills for more than just the subtle art of wasting Imps, and Mayfeld loved it when a woman could really dish out the rough shit on him. As far as he was concerned, she could crush his skull between those gorgeous legs any time she wanted. Why spend time playing rewind in your mind, when you could just cough up the credits and go in for round two?

Mayfeld started to do up his own boots and said (to both respond to Cara’s last comment, and to sum up the shit that had just been buzzing through his head) “Weirdest fucking crew in the galaxy. I’ve never seen so much blood, sex, booze and tears in my life.”

“High stakes get people fired up.” said Cara “When there’s a potential to die every day, you’re always burning hot. That’s why people like you and me don’t really care about finding love. Stakes are high enough as it is. The Mando and the Pirate? They’re both crazy enough to enjoy that kind of emotional pain. They invite it. We avoid it. I don’t even know which takes more guts.”

“Geez. You two spent too much time together having girl talk on the Crest. You’re starting to sound like her.”

“You’re surprised? You’re _actually surprised_ that people like us who continually face death, sometimes get philosophical about life? Did you ever think that this is just who I am, and you never took the time to get to know me because you’re too busy running your mouth off?”

“Shit. You people with your riddling talk are going to scramble my brain.” He stood up, boots done and said “Better go and face the fucking Mando Music...”

Mayfeld exited the hotel to the sound of clapping.

“YEEEEESSSSS!!! RAZOR CREST RADIO! MAYFELD-DUNE EDITION! THE DOGS FUCKING _LOVED IT!!!_ ” bellowed the Pirate towards the sky with her arms outstretched.

The Pirate was clapping, cheering, and jumping around the fire like the maniac that she was. It seemed she’d caught up with the rest of them in the mushroom stakes. The Mando stood by the fire with his arms crossed.

Din said “I told you, Mayfeld. _Razor Crest Radio_...” but he was now holding out his hand in truce.

“Fuck you, Tin Can. I’m going to kill you.” said Mayfeld with a smile, as walked up to Din and shook his hand. They were even.

Tur danced over and clapped him on the back as he sat down by the fire, saying enthusiastically “ _Chakta Sai Kae!”_ The drinking analogy was not lost on him, and he hid his face in his hands with embarrassment.

The Pirate continued with gusto “ _Good work, my friend! Nicely handled!_ I thought she was going to shatter your fucking pelvis at one point! You must have a jaw made of _dura steel,_ you sick fuck!!! No wonder Din couldn’t knock you out! Well done…”

Mayfeld couldn’t help himself and laughed. He still had shit in his system, and at any rate couldn’t figure out how to respond otherwise; the Pirate was lauding him as some hind of hero.

He looked up in time to see Cara emerge from the hotel. She stood with her hands on her hips looking at the Mando “Ok. How much did you listen to?” she demanded of Din. When he didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes and threw her hands up “When you said ‘Razor Crest Radio’ I genuinely thought you were referring to yourself. Thanks a lot! You better not give me any shit about this!”

“Who said he _wasn’t_ referring to us? _I like a bit of background music…”_ leered the Pirate.

Mayfeld saw disaster coming. Dune pointed at Din and yelled “Why would you do that?!!”. The Mando raised his own hand to point at his wife and responded “Don’t look at me! It’s her thing, not mine!”. He drew a sudden conclusion himself and pointed at the Pirate with nothing more than a revolted noise. The Pirate pointed back at him with an emphatic _“Fuck no!”_ , then jabbed her finger at Cara.

He counted a few seconds of ringing silence, until the Pirate said dismissively “Don’t worry, Cara. I’m not going to strip your ship in the middle of the night. Live a little, since you’re still alive!”

Laughter. Their childish embarrassment was fucking comical, considering they all nearly died today.

Mayfeld was still trying to shake off the remaining chuckles when he said to Din “Mando, you got me! How could you even know? I didn’t!”

Din said “The helmet sees a lot. Plus, she let slip about the ginger thing. I had Bera rig the hotel the minute we decided to hit the pools. Naked in the hot water, with a dose? It was only a matter of time. Add in today’s brush with death, and for predators like us, it’s a perfect storm...”

Mayfeld sat with them and laughed. The same three sorry bastards who sprung him from jail under threat of violence. Maybe (and it was a very small maybe) things might work out in the long term with these psychopathic twerps. Maybe he had finally started to run clear.

***

The Mando, baby, and shock trooper were in the war room with the Clan. Tur and the Triggerman stayed by the fire. She had things to discuss with him.

“You dropped all that proton madness in _one Destroyer_!” Mayfeld said “And in record time too… Sheesh! Gives new meaning to that shit on your head.”

“Thanks. The Pirate way is to _crush, and crush hard_ , but I think you know about that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah! I’m never going to hear the end of it...”

“You will.” Tur reached into a pocket “Here.” She handed him his own dog tooth on a leather strap.

“Holy shit. Is this a Pirate pass like Cara’s?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Try ‘thanks’ and ‘I won’t fuck up’ because my cousins will uncork your chest if you _do_ fuck up.”

_“Thanks. I’ll try not to fuck up.”_

“Good enough for me.”

They both stared at the fire for a bit.

“I’m blown away.” said Mayfeld after a time “Who would have thought the first day we met and you were chugging down Xi’an, we might be sitting by a fire like this, and I’d be _grateful_ to know Pirates?”

“Me, Din, Cara. The theatrics were never for you. Just the doors.”

“I feel like I owe you an apology…”

“I don’t need to hear it anymore.”

Mayfeld asked “If everyone hates you when they first meet you, how many apologies do you just accept like that?”

Tur looked at Mayfeld curiously. Either he didn’t know how things were for her, or (hopefully) he was just able to see past all the bullshit now “I’ve only ever had two others – Din and Cara. No one else has had a change of heart except you three.”

“I don’t…” Mayfeld was clearly confused. He had that dumb look on his face again.

Tur explained “ _I don’t have any friends_. I don’t have anyone except my crew and my Clan, and it’s all the fucking same to me.”

“Shit.” said Mayfeld “I don’t have any friends either. Everyone I knew is dead. Mostly thanks to the Mando!”

“You got yourself an upgrade!” said Tur in mock dignity, then went on seriously “But I can say three things about you that have nothing to do with that indestructible jaw of yours. First – Din was right: You’re _one fucking_ _hell of a Triggerman._ ”

“Thanks. You’re a hell of a pilot.”

Tur just smiled in reply.

“So, what are the other two things?” asked Mayfeld.

“You have a greener heart than you give yourself credit for. You risked everything for The Kid. Thank you. You didn’t have to. The job’s not exactly paying well if you don’t count spotchka.”

“No pay?” laughed Mayfeld “Now I’m wondering why I’m even here!”

“Relax, blood-top. The Mando will cough up the credits.” Tur assured him. “I don’t think it’s just the credits keeping you here, do you? Or the spotchka? Or even the Princess of Pain? I don’t know what it is about life, but sometimes once you get on the wheel of fate with people, it’s difficult to get off.”

“Is that why you agreed to marry the Mando? Because you think fate’s just going to keep pulling you together by default? I thought you two agreed in your death vows that you won’t see each other again or some shit?”

“I agreed because I had no choice - I was in love. I….” For once, she was speechless. This was probably a good thing, because she wasn’t sure she was prepared to discuss it with him yet. Thankfully, he changed the subject for her.

Mayfeld said “You’re the only one who wanted to come back for me.”

“Reason three - you’re a hell of a friend.”

“Thanks.”

“If you decide not to come with us, then I… it’s been a _fucking blast…”_

“I don’t know if I want to go to the ocean at the end of the river.” muttered Mayfeld “Full of monsters… I don’t know if I’ll stay after this, but what if I never find out how the story ends? Am I missing out, or adverting disaster? Shit…”

“That’s just a chance you have to take” she said “Stay with us. Go... The Kid? We’ll slay any monster in the sea for that little one.”

“Yeah.” challenged Mayfeld “But where does that leave me? Cara? Any of the other poor bastards that ran with the Mando and aren’t vowed to him? Motherfucker kills as many people as he saves.”

“None of us _needed to be here_. Din Djarin never had to go back for The Kid in the first place. _This_ story? I want to find out how it ends. I think you do too. You don’t _need_ to be any place, unless you find yourself _needing_ the people there…. and by that point, you don’t have a choice.”


	27. Part Three: Legend of the Lone Dropper (Ch. 27 - The Song of Carasynthia Dune)

# Part Three: Legend of the Lone Dropper

_“There's no back door to heaven,_

_Just a front door to hell,_

_Oh, in this corner of the world!_

_Now if you turn your back on the children,_

_Don't you feel it getting colder?_

_In your corner of the world?”_

_\- Lock Up The Wolves (Dio)_

### The Song of Carasynthia Dune

Din was still pissed off. The mission had been a complete failure.

Pirates were still working hard on the data, but the ISB encryption was cutting edge and it could take them forever to decode it. He had no data, probably no bomb, and a nightmare image of the children imprisoned in whatever that machine was. He had also concluded that the Empire was alive and kicking.

They could walk away, but that was not _The Way._ That leaves one remaining option: do something about it.

Mayfeld had the right idea once. Stuck on a prison ship, it had occurred to him that _Pirates were notorious for jailbreaks._

Carasynthia Dune of Alderaan, most experienced solider in the group, would lead the mission. With the War Dogs at her command, it was time for them to pull one of the biggest jailbreaks in Pirate history.

***

_“CORELLISI! OI! CORELLISI! OI!”_

_Rattle your spears and beat all the odds!_

_The great Acclamator will burn down today!_

_“BLOOD FOR BLOOD, AND BLOOD FOR THE GODS!!!”_

_After the blast of the big EMP_

_The Imperial beast died in space_

_Twelve War Dog ships, with the Dropper in charge_

_Kicked down the front door to the place_

_The shock trooper’s bravery led the brigade_

_And she set out to make the place burn_

_But the EMP had not done all the work_

_As they soon in their horror would learn_

_The children were chosen – special and rare_

_Strong in the ways of the Force_

_The Empire was draining their life for a price_

_Their personal dark power source_

_The EMP blast which had crippled the ship_

_Did not dent the fucked-up device_

_The children now powered their very own doom_

_And they screamed as it drained out their lives_

_While the Dogs worked away to free every child_

_The Dropper took care of the fight_

_Triggerman, Bomber and Mando in tow_

_The Death Goddess showed them her might_

_With blood in the air, and the smell of burnt flesh_

_Her enemies fell by the score_

_The Pirate work done, and the children all free_

_It was now time to make the real war_

_“CORELLISI! OI! CORELLISI! OI!”_

_Rattle your spears and beat all the odds!_

_The great Acclamator will burn down today!_

_“BLOOD FOR BLOOD, AND BLOOD FOR THE GODS!!!”_

_Every person that fled from the ship hold that day_

_On one thing they all could depend_

_That the Dropper stood fast, and would cover them all_

_And would not leave her post to the end_

_As the heroes that day flew away through the sky_

_They fired the big thermal blast_

_It ripped up the sky like damned Tatooine_

_And it fucked all the Imps in the ass!_

_Cry praise to the Dropper and kneel at her feet_

_Grab hold of your spear in her name_

_And tithe to the beautiful Goddess of Death_

_The Legend - The Princess of Pain!_

_“CORELLISI! OI! CORELLISI! OI!”_

_Rattle your spears and beat all the odds!_

_The great Acclamator will burn down today!_

_“BLOOD FOR BLOOD, AND BLOOD FOR THE GODS!!!”_


	28. The Winds of Destiny

### The Winds of Destiny

The Mandalorian and the Triggerman stood in the shady alley across from the crowded Coronet spaceport.

Din felt like his head was buzzing as much as the busy main street in front of it. How they hadn’t anticipated this eventuality was beyond him. It seemed so stupid now.

“There were over 300.” he said, thinking aloud.

“327 of the little bastards, to be exact.” Mayfeld corrected him “I don’t know _what the hell_ we’re going to do with them. Hopefully the Clan will think of something.”

Cara returned from the spaceport and reported “They’re on the transport. 3:10 to Yavin.”

Mayfeld asked “How many did Inky take again? The ones who can actually remember where they came from?”

Din replied “Not as many as we’d hoped. 48.”

Cara laughed “I wonder how Tur’s doing with 48 kids running around the Trivium?”

Mayfeld speculated “The way she flies? She’s probably got half of them home already and is treating the rest to a lesson in colourful language and barrel rolls.”

“She’s going to see Maz Kanata too.” added Din “Find out the word underground. Maybe see if she can hustle up a decent sized transport. The Clan will try and raise some more funds. We have to get all these kids into hiding.”

***

Cara was in contemplative silence, no doubt thinking the same thing as all of them.

They were lost.

Whatever the contraption aboard the Acclamator-II had been, it seemed to drain the Force from living things. As the Dogs worked, it was clear that the longer the children stayed in the machine, the weaker they became. It had taken almost every Pirate to figure out how to free the children without killing them all.

Dune took only her ship crew to fend off the Imps. The Clan had provided all sorts of concussive goodies for her to use. Just big enough to rock the Imps, but not big enough to blast them all into a million pieces. They were after all, trapped on a ship with an enemy army, unknown tech, and a freakishly large bomb.

It had been a nightmare race against time as the Pirates had worked on what they had simply come to call the ‘hell machine’. The more children were removed, the more energy it seemed to pull from the ones that remained. The Clan, with their natural default to being systematic, started with the youngest and most vulnerable, working their way up to the oldest and strongest. This meant that the oldest teens had to bear the awful brunt of it.

The younglings had been scared of the War Dogs; their recent experience having eroded the last of any trust they had in adults. The Pirates would have been happy to transport all the children but understood how the frightened foundlings felt.

The Clan had no allies they could trust either, so other arrangements had to be made to get them all to safety. The _Trivium_ couldn’t take them all, and the _Razor Crest_ was even less suitable. At any rate, they had no idea where to take them.

As Cara saw it, there were two key problems preventing them from reaching a solution.

Firstly, some children were either too young, or seemed to have been captive so long, they didn’t know exactly where they were from, and in some cases what their names were. Some, after the horrors they had suffered, couldn’t even speak at all. The Dogs started hacking into official records to track down identities for as many as they could, but it appeared that many of the children would simply end up with nowhere to go.

The second problem was that the Pirates were not welcome in spaceports. They ended up dropping most of the children with Din, Cara and Mayfeld on the outskirts of Coronet and making for one of their hidden camps. Now they needed transport.

The Pirates would take the very youngest as they were not old enough to be afraid of the war crew, but this was only 25 of them. There were still 254 children for them to take into town by foot. Inconspicuously.

Din Djarin was a highly recognisable and very wanted man. Cara and Mayfeld could disguise themselves reasonably well, but Tin Can was more difficult. The Mandalorian took the oldest teens through the sewers. They would recon and secure an area to hide in. Thankfully, nearer to the spaceport, they found a reasonable section of old tunnels which was dry and large enough to fit them all together.

Cara sent Mayfeld to see if he could find a ship he could hire or steal without raising suspicion, and she stayed outside town with the rest of the kids until the Mando came back. Once they had moved all the kids to the hide out, they could send the identified children out on transports from the busy spaceport, using every single credit coughed up from every Dog ship.

Wrangling 254 children who were all hungry, frightened and tired, was a hideous and thankless task. Dune made a smart choice and invested some of the credits in some simple bread and water to be shared around. Even with a meagre meal and some hydration, the children improved visibly, and the act of eating distracted them somewhat from their fear. As they started to huddle together for body warmth to sleep, the three adults could begin the process of slowly sending the children out of town.

What the Empire were doing with their Force power, none of them knew. The Mandalorian was convinced the hell machine would be rebuilt, and the Empire would soon be searching for young lives to feed it.

Crush one evil regime, and a new order will rise in its place. The Rebellion will continue to fight and regroup just the same. Jedi and Sith rise and fall in light and dark, and the gunslingers walk the bloody line between. It was an endless cycle of blood and retribution.


	29. The Smoke on The Water

### The Smoke on The Water

“Bright star!” said Maz, as Tur entered the sanctuary of Takodana Castle “I got your message. Let me look at you. It’s been…”

“Hey, you weren’t here last time!” said Tur as she swung into a seat at a vacant table “So don’t give me the _‘it’s been too long’_ routine! I didn’t even get to tell you about the Star Destroyer.”

Maz chuckled “I heard about that anyway, Turhaya. Always the same you are, and yet…” she fiddled with her oversized glasses and peered at her visitor “Different.” A look of intrigue “Well, well! Let me see….”

Tur smiled. She loved this song, no matter how many times she heard it sung. The little old orange lady climbed on the table and stared critically at her. The giant glasses adjusted and twiddled. After a while of scowling and examining, Maz finally stopped short in pleasant surprise “You’re in love!”

“Yep.” Tur answered, then added in a whisper _“A Mando.”_

“No! Not…. _him_?”

She nodded. She was very pleased with herself.

Her host did not seem as pleased “Be careful, green heart! Trouble follows that man as sure as darkness will follow the setting of the suns. Things may be short lived. You know this, I think.”

“I know. I bet my ship.”

 _“You married? Ha!_ You _are_ at peace with this choice!” Kanata scurried across the tabletop to dish out a hug.

“I wish there were a million more like you! I might be able to find enough people to take the foundlings...” Tur concluded in a mutter.

Maz pointed a delicate orange finger at her and said “I think I may be able to help you, Turhaya. I think I might be able to help _a lot_. _”_

***

Tur was sitting on top of the _Trivium_ fixing the deflector shields in the woods, far from the noise of the castle.

The outside was better than the inside. All those kids, hyperactive from their brush with death, had trashed her ship. Not they damaged anything, but the mess they made in their exuberant state was terrible. She tried to wipe the sweat from her brow. Rather than remove the sweat, she smeared grease on herself. The sweat went into her eyes and stung.

“Ouch! Piece of shit!” she said, blinking.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say _that_ , but she’s taken a few good hits….” said a voice from below.

Tur was startled. She slipped out a blaster. There was supposed to be no one around, and she wasn’t expecting visitors.

“Oi! Who’s down there?!” she called.

“Heard you were looking for a smuggler?” came the faceless voice again.

“Who’s askin’?” said Tur warningly.

“Maz Kanata sent me.”

 _“Really?”_ Sarcasm.

“Having problems with some kids?”

“First thing’s first, mate – hands up, and let’s see your face!”

From under the _Trivium_ came a sound: _GGGGGGHHHHHRRAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!_

_What the fuck was that?!!_

She drew her second blaster “Out here now!” she was taking no chances with whatever was obscured from view by her ship.

When she saw not one, but two faces, she dropped both her blasters in shock. The first figure to appear was large, hairy and infamous. The second, was nothing short of a _motherfucking Corellian legend –_ The General himself - _Han Solo._

_Cjaalysce'l! Your reputation precedes you!_

***

In the _Trivium’s_ lounge, Tur was still spinning out and nothing seemed real anymore. Then again, they had been smoking from a Kashyyyk aqua pipe. Better than spotchka by a dozen parsecs.

**The great General Han Solo and the mighty motherfucking Chewbacca, sitting inside the YT, smoking and scheming with a lowly Pirate. You couldn’t make this bizarre crap up!**

Han Solo may have started as a typical city flyboy, but he was now recognised as the best damned pilot ever. These two were the reason she’d the YT series ship. She was a _serious fan._

_“HOLY HONDO!”_ Tur thumped the table with her fist in glee “When Maz said she was getting help, she didn’t say she was getting _the best_ _in the galaxy_!”

“Well, I don’t know about that” said Han, and pulled the thick smoke from the pipe into his lungs. As he breathed out, he said “But work’s work, and hear its _good_ work.”

Tur admitted “Doesn’t pay much...” as she took the pipe herself and inhaled deeply.

“I’m not just in it for the money, you know…” smirked Han.

Tur smiled “This is unreal. _I am honoured…_ and I’m fucking _stoned_ …” she blinked rapidly and passed the pipe to Chewbacca, telling him “That’s some _amazing_ shit, my hairy friend.”

“Ain’t that big of a deal, sweetheart. I owe the old lady a few anyway.” replied Han “…and Chewie always has the best shit.”

“I heard stories about you being all humble.” she teased him “Except if it involves the Falcon. You still got her?”

“No.” scowled Solo “I’m looking for her.”

“Sorry.” Tur said, the smile dropping instantly from her face. YT’s were good, solid, Corellian ships, and the _Millennium Falcon_ was supposed to be the best of the best “I’m not going to ask what happened, but if I hear anything, I’ll leave word at the castle.”

“Thanks.” said Solo “Kanata said you took out a Star Destroyer all by yourself in this thing? Impressive. It’s impressive you found one in the first place. Although judging from what you found in that Acclamator…” he tailed off.

(They had of course discussed the cargo he was to carry, where it had come from, and the political implications it had. She felt sure that General Organa would hear about this.)

Tur cocked an eyebrow and said “She told you about the Destroyer? It’s been a long time since I took out one of those things. It was a blast!”

“I heard Clan get their thrills from knocking out ships.” Han’s comment seemed to be more of a mild teasing than anything else “How long did it take you to wipe out that damn thing, anyway?”

Han and Chewbacca had an unusually good knowledge (and empathetic understanding) of Old Clan. Tur suspected she had a combination of Maz, being Corellian, and owning a YT, to thank for it. At least no one was beating her with a blaster today.

She took a long pull on the pipe and then gave the General exactly what he wanted. With a very proud grin she told him the final clock on the Destroyer run “Less than two minutes to blow up that Imp piece of shit.”

Solo whistled “You must be packing some serious heat in this junk pile!”

“Five plasma bombs and a _really_ over-stacked bunker buster. Usually gets the job done once you’ve softened it up with the ion cannons.”

The General gave her one of his dry laughs “Nice work, kid!” Chewbacca made a noise, but Tur didn’t understand Shyriiwook. Han asked her on the Wookiee’s behalf “How does she sound when you give her a good kick?”

“Roars like a pissed off Akk Dog.” she grinned “Took a leaf out of your book and installed SRB42 wide bar sub-lights.” It was the same sub-light engine the Falcon had.

“Can’t fault you there.” Han said.

“Side stabilisers are - you’re going to laugh – 4L4 fusial thrusters!” Han looked shocked, so she raised her hands in the air defensively and said “What? I like to drift!”

“X-Wing thrusters?!” laughed Han.

 _“Kas tulisha abia al port!”_ she winked at him. _Chaos opens the door to opportunity!_

“Ggrrfff ggrrfff ggrrfff ggrrfff ggrrfff!!” Chewbacca apparently found it funny. The Wookiee blew out an enormous cloud of smoke which made all of them cough. The inside of the _Trivium_ was now completely hazy.

She said to them both “Pirates like to play Kashyyyk Style. Overkill! Makes up for being slower than you flyboys. I can’t even begin to understand how you pulled off that Kessel Run shit. The things I’ve heard are fucking unbelievable!”

Tur was _thrilled_ at Solo’s reaction. The General stretched and smiled the way all Corellians did when they were about to tell one hell of a tale.

“The Kessel Run? _Well!_ That’s quite a story...”


	30. The Hidden Snare

### The Hidden Snare

Din Djarin’s wife had called and said she’d hooked up the galaxy’s best transport (whatever that meant) and managed to find somewhere to send the rest of the children into the bargain.

Bera hadn’t been able to decrypt most of the ISB data, which he found alarming since Clan could hack almost anything. There was nothing about The Kid, but there were some logs which showed locations that Gideon was prone to frequenting.

Animals who eat plants need minimal brain power to find their food. They would return to the same rivers and grass plains to feed.

The Mandalorian intended to stake out the killing field. Despite his brother-in-law’s scepticism, he had learnt a few things from his wife. The value of stealth in tracking. Gathering information and planning.

Predators don’t often fall for traps. They’re usually too cunning.

But Gideon had prepared one hell of a trap.

***

It had been a long time since Han had set foot on Corellia.

While Tur and his first mate did the last of the repairs to the _Trivium_ at the Pirate campsite, Solo had gone to collect Din, Cara and Mayfeld and send the children into hiding.

He was currently flying a ship called the _Eravana,_ which was a Baleen-Class bulk freighter and could easily carry the foundlings.

The General wouldn’t tell the others where the children would eventually end up, and believed that the less everybody knew, the better. You can’t spill secrets you don’t know, and he had first-hand experience of the Empire’s brutal torture methods. Those kids, with their Force touch, would be in constant danger from here on in.

Secrecy would be their protection.

***

Tur had just finished cleaning up the inside of the _Trivium_ , and it was finally back in order, but when she emerged to greet the incoming _Eravana,_ it was to find the outside of her YT was not in order at all.

“CHEWIE!!!!!” yelled Tur to be heard over the freighter’s landing thrusters “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! PUT THAT BACK!!!”

“GGGRRARAHH GRRRRFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!” Chewbacca waved his arms and went straight back to his work, which just happened to be the job of removing the entire dorsal turret.

“Gotta go, kid.” said Han from behind her. The General was exiting his freighter with a trailer that had something large on it covered in a protective drop sheet.

She could only point between the General and the Wookie with a look of total mortification.

“You said you like to play Kashyyyk Style. Overkill. So…” Han removed the sheet with a flourish and said happily “Quad cannon! Chewie’s been working on it. It’s just on loan, so don’t get carried away.”

Her expression changed instantly into delight “But what’s the point of this? I can’t fly _and_ use the cannon by myself.”

“You won’t be by yourself.” said Han “I’m coming with you.”

Since Chewbacca could handle the _Eravana_ , the General said he would fly with her and man the gun. Gruff bastard said it would bring back memories.

She had different ideas, and (as difficult as it was) offered up the pilot’s chair to her beloved Triv “General, I would be honoured if you would fly her. I’ll be _your_ gunner.”

A familiar, sarcastic voice issued from the _Eravana’s_ ramp “Who in the hell would trust _you_ with something like _that,_ you fucking nutcase whore? _I’ll_ man the gun…”


	31. Part Four: Din Djarin Unchained (Ch. 31 - The Snatch and Grab)

# Part Four: Din Djarin Unchained

_“He felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered.”_

_– Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (JK Rowling)._

### The Snatch and Grab

Cara was staring at her boots. The campfire in the Corellian forest was quiet as the last five soldiers prepared for war.

Din, the sneaky bastard, had given them the slip at Coronet, leaving her stuck with Mayfeld and the baby. Under the cover of the chaos caused with getting the kids on the _Eravana_ , he had snuck off to the Crest.

Bera had taken the Dogs ahead to try and intercept him, while they finished the job and delivered the foundlings. The Clan leader knew that the small amount of data they had been able to decrypt may have been planted deliberately. He had sent across the information with a stern warning, but Din was a stubborn son of a bitch.

Cara felt sure the Mando was headed for disaster, and she was not about to underestimate Gideon a second time. Solo had put in a call to get some old Rebel fighters into the mix. Once Chewie had the quad cannon done, they would follow the War Dogs into battle.

“We’ll stow the _Trivium_ inside the _Eravana_ , then make the jump.” said Han “That way if there’s a nasty surprise waiting for us, we can jump again immediately without coordinating. The Clan, and a few friends of Chewie and mine, will give Gideon a little chaos to deal with while we get in and grab the Mando.”

Mayfeld asked the obvious “What happens if the Mando isn’t there?”

“Don’t worry.” said Tur “I’ve got that stupid _Razor Crest_ tracked multiple ways. We’ll find him.”

“Still, this could be a lot of heat. Keep your eyes peeled. If we must leave the main fleet, we’ll do it together. Nobody jumps anywhere alone, got it?” ordered the General.

“What if they’re blocking our trajectory and we can’t jump together?” asked Cara. She thought this seemed to be the weak point of the plan. They had no idea how many ships Gideon would have waiting for them, and Dune knew the pressure of being vastly outnumbered.

“Yeah…. about that…” said Tur scratching her head stubble.

Cara had seen the Pirate sing this song before, when she revealed to them the impossibly large, Tatooine-sized potential of the Acclamator bomb. She braced herself for what was coming next.

“… I can clear a path, but it will require certain sacrifices on Mayfeld’s behalf…” said Tur gingerly.

“Define ‘sacrifices’ please, soldier?” asked Cara warily.

“Play ‘spin the saucer’ with the quad gun…”

Dune felt that Mayfeld’s horrified look was partially warranted.

The YT-2400 was designed so that two bracing arms connected the cockpit (essentially a long tube) to the starboard side of the disc-shaped body. This meant that unlike the _Millennium Falcon_ (where the starboard cockpit was still technically _part_ of the body) The _Trivium’s_ cockpit sat quite a distance offset from the main part of the ship.

The way the Pirate described it, she had two rolls.

First, was a standard roll (a ‘gunner’s roll’, she had called it) where amidships stayed amidships, and the cockpit rotated around the gun turret. This roll was best for when you were already firing forward and wanted to keep your aim steady in an attack formation.

The second roll, Tur had called playing ‘spin the saucer’ or a ‘pilot’s roll’. This is where she rotated the main disc around the cockpit instead. Very handy for a retreat, because the pilot remained steady, and you could spray fire behind you.

Tur addressed Mayfeld “If you can hold your lunch down, we could create a nice forward spray.” then added to Solo “Clear a path big enough even for your freighter to slip through, Han.”

“Think you can handle it?” Han asked the Triggerman.

“Don’t have much of a choice, but yeah, I think I’m game.”

“Good!” said Han “Cara, you and Chewie will have The Kid and we’ve got the guns, so we will be covering your ass.”

There was a quiet moment where they all ran this back over in their own minds. Dune still had misgivings but couldn’t think of an adequate way to express them all.

Finally, she broke the silence herself “This isn’t your fight.” she said to the General “You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s not just yours either. It’s _everyone’s_ fight.” replied Han.

“How do you figure that?”

“What do you think happens if Gideon wipes out the last of the Mandalorians? Who wins if that hell machine gets rebuilt? How do you think things are going to end if we just sit back and let the Dark Side rise again?” Solo challenged her.

“I get what you’re saying, but we signed up for this, and we _have_ to be involved.”

“You’re from Alderaan!” Han sparked up “You know just as well as Leia what the worst looks like! I used to be _afraid_ to be involved, but to actually turn away help when it’s offered freely by your friends is insane!”

The Wookiee called out to them to let them know the ships were finally ready to leave. As they all got up to go to war, Han put a hand gently on her shoulder and said quietly (with a slightly sad smile) “Carasynthia… The ship is always stronger than the sum of its parts.”

***

Not all predators are the same. Some prefer to hunt alone and claim their own kills. Others hunt in packs, bringing down prey by sheer force of numbers.

A favourite tactic of any hunting pack is to isolate their chosen kill. Separate it from the safety of the herd before making their move. It disorients the prey, and clear space becomes available in which to make the final strike from multiple angles.

The Star Destroyer, one of three, sat in serene formation. A hoard of TIE fighters swarmed around them. Gideon bided his time.

He knew Din Djarin would come to him. The foolish exploit on the Acclamator had exposed him. The Mandalorian was peering through a keyhole and not seeing the full picture.

He was certain the important data was still secure, although it aggravated him greatly to think _the child_ had been so tantalisingly close and not been captured. However, it was almost worth letting the Pirates destroy the regenerator if it handed him such spoils as today promised to deliver.

One thing was certain – the Mandalorian was persistent. It was this insatiable desire to hunt that Gideon intended to use against him.

The Mando’s insistence in personally taking the child everywhere was also going to work in his favour. Once they had their prey pinned down, it would be easy to snatch the baby from the dilapidated _Razor Crest_.

In a few hours, they should have the asset. Din Djarin would be dead, removing the fly from his ointment, and crushing what little hope Mandalore had left with the death of their latest hero.

They may also get a chance to take out the large contingent of Corellian scum that stole the data in the first place. If the vagrants were fool enough to still be in possession of the data files, they could wipe out all evidence and all witnesses in one stroke.

He could then rebuild the regenerator immediately without having to worry about the Republic finding out what they were up to. His rank and loyalty would remain unquestioned, and he stood to become the most powerful Moff in Imperial history.

Today was going to be a productive day.

“Moff Gideon, Sir.” the Trooper roused him from his reverie.

“Yes.”

“The _Razor Crest_ has left Coronet as you suspected. What are our next orders, Sir?”

“Ready the chase squad. When he arrives, allow him to flee, and ensure the Mandalorian is tracked through hyperspace.”

“We’re _allowing_ him to leave, Sir?”

“Yes. I want to separate the Mandalorian from the others. They don’t know we can track through hyperspace, and the Pirates should lose sight of both us and the bounty hunter as he runs.”

“Understood, Sir.”

“Inform the Commanders on the other two Destroyers that they must deal with the Corellian rabble quickly. Leave none alive and destroy all ships, but only _after_ they receive the order. No freighters are to be touched until we are certain we have the asset.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Remember - it is important that you do not damage the Mandalorian’s ship too greatly. Make sure you retrieve the child _alive_. Kill the Mando, whatever it takes.”

“Yes, Moff Gideon, Sir.”


	32. The Wild Bunch

### The Wild Bunch

Tur: Your little bitch tears, Mayfeld? I don’t want to hear them today. You got that, mate?

Mayfeld: Like anyone can hear anything over your filthy mouth!

Cara: You guys going to put the banter aside to get this done?

Mayfeld: Wouldn’t have it any other way, Dune. Been looking for an excuse to ride with this psychopath ever since the Destroyer thing.

Chewie: Gggrrraaaaggrgrgrfff!

Han: We’re ready Chewie. If we find ourselves mid-battle, we’ve got to get the Trivium out. Don’t forget, Dune - try and locate the Mando quickly. We’re covering you.

Cara: Copy.

***Clicking. Switches*********

Tur _: (ACTIVATE TRIVIUM PILOT VOICE COMMAND: PASS CODE - ZERO NINE FIVE SEVEN EWOK. Initiate automatic shield booster rerouting. Begin signal trace. Full manual mode for all other systems. Shut down power to: Non-essential support. Cargo. Quarters. Lounge. Escape pods. Med. Activate supplementary shield boosters.)_

Han: Systems locked and holding. Beginning ordinance cross-check.

Tur: Sure you don’t want the driver’s seat, General?

Han: No way. I’m old enough to know when I’m getting too old for something. She’s all yours.

Tur: Well, hang on to your pants, you scruffy looking stud. We’re going for a _wild ride_.

Mayfeld: Stop flirting, whore bag.

Tur: Don’t ruin this for me, Dura-jaw.

Cara: Eravana’s coming out hyperspace, guys.

***Clicking. Switches*****

Han: Right. You two listen to me, and we might get out of this alive. I’ve got navigation and ordinance. Red’s on the gun, and Inky has the wheel. If we keep focused on our own jobs, we’ll be fine.

Cara: Exiting now.

***ERAVANA HYPERDRIVE ENGINES**************************************************

Cara: Shit!

Chewie: GGRARRAAAAAAAAA!

Han: That sound’s bad…

Cara: It doesn’t look good.

Tur: We’re on our way out now.

***TRIVIUM ENGINES******************************************

Han: Good luck, Cara. Get that signal for us.

Cara: Copy.

***ENGINES*************************************************************

***TIE FIGHTERS******************************

***ENGINES***************************************************

Han: You don’t mess around, kid!

Tur: I’ve got a dumb Mandalorian to rescue.

Han: Don’t just sit there, Red! Get firing!

***QUAD CANNON*********************************************************************

Mayfeld: Woah!!!

Tur: That quad sounds incredible…

Mayfeld: _IT IS INCREDIBLE!!! Hahaaaaa!!!_

***QUAD CANNON******************************************************************

Tur: Did the moons align or something? Since when did you transform into a monster?

***QUAD CANNON******************************************************************

***TIE FIGHTERS******************************

***EXPLOSION*********

Mayfeld: That’s one down!

Han: Keep your countdown to yourself! Find that damn signal, Dune!

Cara: I’m trying. Still not getting anything…

Tur: Let’s check in the middle of this shit storm. Give them the 9 and 10, Han, and make some room for me.

Han: Copy.

***REPEATING ION CANNON FIRE******************************************************

***STAR DESTROYER ION CANNON FIRE******************************************

***EXPLOSION****************

Mayfeld: Stay away from those Imp cannons, blood-drinker, or I’m fried!

Tur: Yeah? Well, you’re not going ‘round two’, so don’t wait to be hit.

Han: Think like a Corellian and shoot first!

***QUAD CANNON******************************************************************

_Unknown: Hey, Gold Leader! I was wondering when you two hairy morons were going to show up to your own party._

Han: Wedge Antilles? Is that you?

_Wedge: Corellians can smell their own! Brought some friends to play too. Figured you could use some help._

Han: I always do…

***QUAD CANNON********************************************************

***ENGINES*********************************

Han: What’s with the red blinking light?

Tur: Pirate line! Grab it!

***Clicking***

_Bera: Turhaya! He’s already gone! They’ve got him cornered!_

Tur: Repeat?

_Bera: The Mando is gone! They tracked him through hyperspace!_

***QUAD CANNON********************************************************

***ENGINES****************************************************************

Tur: Bera?... Say again?!!

 _Bera:_ _ONE OF THE STAR DESTOYERS TRACKED HIM THROUGH HYPERSPACE!_

Han: That’s impossible! You can’t track anything through hyperspace!

***QUAD CANNON********************************************************

***TIE FIGHTERS******************************

***ENGINES*************************************************************

Han: Wait a minute… They’re not attacking the freighters…. Look at their formation…

***TIE FIGHTERS******************************

***ENGINES****************************************************************

***QUAD CANNON********************************************************

Cara: It’s a blockade! They’re not attacking freighters because they think we might have The Kid! They’ve anticipated all of this….

Han: IT’S A TRAP!

Mayfeld: Come on, Princess! Find that Crest and let’s get the fuck out of here!

Cara: Nearly there. C’mon, Mando! Where are you?

Han: Bera?

_Bera: Yes, General?_

Han: Group all ships in Sector 4! Wedge, you do the same!

_Wedge: You want to put us all together? Why don’t we just paint targets on ourselves??_

Han: They’re trying to stop us from leaving. They’re not attacking.

Cara: GOT HIM! Signal locked!

Han: About time! Wedge! Bera! We gather, and then at the same time, make a break for it. If everyone storms the blockade together, they’ll have a much harder time trying to stop us, and it’ll make them harder to figure out which of our ships is really going after the _Razor Crest_.

_Bera: Copy_

_Wedge: Copy_

Han: On second thoughts… Wedge?

_Wedge: Yeah, Han?_

Han: I could do with an escort. Make sure each of the Dog ships has one too.

_Wedge: I got you, Solo. We all do._

Han: Well, Pirate. Let’s see what Sabacc cards you’ve got hidden up that sleeve of yours.

***ENGINES*************************************

***

It had only now occurred to Han that this was not like any other mission he had flown.

The Imperial Security Bureau. While most Imps were slow and stupid, ISB were a different breed of Trooper. He suspected it’s where this rag-tag crew had picked up their specialist Triggerman from, although he couldn’t be certain.

Solo had made the mistake of underestimating the Empire before, even after having served them in the infantry. He had been rash and unthinking, even after all these years of hard lessons, but that was nothing new. His ability to fly by the seat of his pants would pay some cavalier dividends today.

Heroes do good deeds. They rescue princesses and shit. Han Solo, who had been hunted his entire life, knew how to defend _well_. He was the biggest buck on this killing floor, and he was about to lower his antlers and charge _._

The YT swung towards Sector 4. Han checked the navigation system and locked in the coordinates that the Dropper had sent across. The Pirate hit the thrusters hard in her frantic need to reach her husband. She had not been wrong about the engines when really kicked, and the _Trivium_ shot forward.

Unfortunately, Wedge had not been completely wrong either. As the ships collected in Sector 4, TIE fighters tried to take out the X-Wings. The Moff must have been reasonably confident that the little green tyke was on one of the Dog ships, because they left the larger freighters alone and concentrated on their escorts.

The fighter pilots would have to do what they were all born to do – _fight._

***

Mayfeld readied himself. He had some experience as a gunner back in the day with the Imps but operating the quad cannon on the YT was something else. The ship flew like a proper fighter… except for the drift…

Inky had a way of strafing the ship around that defied all incoming fire, and the bitch was fucking quick! A thought occurred that if the Corellian General was better than Inky, it was no wonder that he was a damned legend.

The Triggerman had flown with a lot of pilots, but they were mostly Imp trained. Predictable. Inky was a total wildcard, because she had _never_ been trained. In the cockpit with her, feeding her advice was a war hero. Her gunner was no slouch either. The fact that the TIEs couldn’t catch them, just made his fingers more accurate and hungrier for the kill.

Mayfeld, breathing heavily like the crazy motherfucker that he was, began his personal revenge mission to tear the Empire a collective new one.

***

Cara and the Wookiee took the big freighter into Sector 4 as instructed. She looked at The Kid in his carrier.

The Kid. It all came down to him, and all the other children who were gifted just like him.

While Dune had always preferred to operate alone, she had found a new strength in fighting with allies. Fucking love! It always raised the stakes in any Sabacc game, but it dealt out some amazing cards too.

The Mudhorn crew and the War Dogs were a _proper team_. Not like the Empire. That was something else. Taking individuals and making them all the same thing was _not_ a team. A real team used the strengths of the individuals to make the whole greater.

Solo had told her by the fireside ‘ _The ship is always stronger than the sum of its parts’._

The General was right. He was also right about being insane to refuse help from your friends. As Cara and Chewie positioned the _Eravana_ to make the run to light speed, she took in the sight of the Imp blockade. There was no way out, unless the Pirate and her X-Wing escort could _create_ a way out.

The team aboard the _Trivium_ were as ready as they were ever going to be. Cara prayed to no one in particular, that she was ready too.

***

Turhaya felt _fine_ , if you didn’t count the acidic worry which was burning her.

The Kid had the best solider in the galaxy and a mighty Wookiee warrior as his personal guard. She had a legendary co-pilot, a highly decorated Rebel escort, and a mad Triggerman for a gunner. Tur was free to fly, surrounded by friends who just happened to be total fucking pros.

Nothing _here_ bothered her.

It was the thought of Din facing Gideon and his goon troops alone, that left the uncomfortable shards of ice floating through her otherwise hot-blooded veins.


	33. The Blockade

### The Blockade

Tur: General, we need to get moving…

Han: I hear you, sweetheart. Mayfeld, you ready?

Mayfeld: Let’s dance, Solo.

**_Han: Attention all ships - This is General Solo. Lock in coordinates now for the jump to hyperspace. Fighters - stay with your freighters. Dog ships – if you’re sitting on any heavy fire power, now is the time to use it!_ **

***

The quad cannon had just dispatched another TIE fighter.

There was so many of them, Mayfeld found he hardly needed to swing the great gun, as Tur used the X-Wing side thrusters to strafe the YT around the _Eravana_ in crazy cork-crews. They may not have been attacking the Dog ships, but the Imps were determined to wipe out the fighters.

Every time the Pirate smashed the throttle, the engines roared in a way that made him wish he was back in the junk hotel with Princess Pain. He thought about the story Tur had told him about the Akk Dog.

The beast – the great predatory lizard – had _grinned_ at them. Lolling its enormous black tongue and smiling through rows of hideously sharp triangular teeth. _Enjoying_ it. _Hungry_.

Mayfeld knew it. Inky knew it. And he had a shrewd guess that the fast living, and notorious General knew it too. The bloodlust inside the _Trivium_ was so thick, Mayfeld could smell it like musky pheromones.

Predators _loved_ to hunt.

***

The _Eravana_ fired its thrusters, and Tur pulled the YT into position. It was finally time for her to play spin the saucer.

She barely noticed where Wedge was, but trusted him to stay out of her way. Wedge and Han knew what to do, and they had done it more times than all the Dogs put together.

She smashed the throttle and the sub-light bar shouted its menacing war cry. As she jerked on the controls, the main saucer of the ship started to do a deathly spin. Mayfeld hammered the roaring quad, and Han let loose on ‘9 and 10’, adding their voices to the song of death.

***

The Triv was spinning at a rate that Mayfeld didn’t think was possible at this speed, and the force of the rotation pressed on everything in his body. The Triggerman grunted and swore as everything fought against him in the gunner’s chair.

The barrage tore straight through the blockade with no effort, but the TIEs quickly blocked the gap, and advanced.

As the first TIE made proximity, Inky pulled out of the barrel roll and nosedived sharply. Mayfeld temporarily became disoriented and stopped firing as the crazy blood-drinker pulled a full force loop, and the General took the TIE out from above with a blast from one of the ion cannons.

The advancing fighters meant that Tur had to tactically fly to avoid being taken out. With all the dodging and cannon fire, they didn’t need the barrel rolls because the YT sprayed death at the blockade without relent.

Every shot, every roll, every dodged disaster brought them one step closer to the Mando.

The hunt was on.

***

Cara: Prepare to exit hyperspace. I can’t believe we made it out of there!

Chewbacca: Gggrraraaaaahhh.

Cara: How’s the Mando’s signal looking?

Chewbacca: Grraaa Grrffffff.

Cara: Good. Cut them.

***ERAVANA HYPERDRIVE ENGINES******************************************************

Cara: Oh shit!

Chewbacca: GGGRRARAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR!

***TRIVIUM HYPERDRIVE ENGINES**********

Han: Oh shit…

Mayfeld: OH SHIT!

Tur: A Star Destroyer? Is that all?

Cara: It’s a Destroyer!

Tur: Cara! Land now and find him! _We’ve_ got the Destroyer.

Cara: But…

Tur: Don’t make me tell you to leave again!

Cara: …Copy.

Han: We’ll be with you in less than two minutes, soldier. The Pirate’s got a reputation to uphold. Find the Mando…

Cara: Good luck.

Chewbacca: Grrrrrrrrrrrfffffffffff!

***ENGINES************************************************************

***

Han: OK, Pirate. Time to have some extremely short-lived fun. Corellian style.

Tur: Corellian style? You got it, General….

***Clicking. Switches*****

Tur: One Destroyer ass-fucking coming right up! If this doesn’t get your engines hot, Han, nothing will. Rusty will be practically knocking down the junk hotel to get to Princess Pain later.

Mayfeld: Promises, promises, Inky.

Han: No more talk – let’s see some action.

***ENGINES************************************************************

Tur: I’m keeping this transcript…

Mayfeld: Hands on the controls, not the General…

***ENGINES***********************************

Tur: Shut it! Command section’s coming up. Save me some proton torps and do your job.

***QUAD CANNON*******************************************************************

***STAR DESTROYER ION CANNON**************************

***ENGINES*************************

***QUAD CANNON**********************************************************************

***EXPLOSION******************************

Han: Nice work, Red! TIEs are coming, kid. Lots of them!

Tur: Woah! You’re not wrong! Gideon means fucking business...

Mayfeld: Show those Imp boys your ‘personal best’, whore bag.

Tur: Ha! They wouldn’t know what to do with it, even if they could keep up with me…

***ENGINES*************************************************************

***QUAD CANNON********************************************************

***TIE FIGHTERS*************************************************************

Han: Hangar is wide open.

***TIE FIGHTERS*************************************************************

Mayfeld: Just like Tur’s legs when the sees the Mando.

***QUAD CANNON********************************************************

***ENGINES*************************************************************

Tur: Yeah, and just like him, we’ll stick something big and hot in there. Ready all ordinance for drop and remote trigger, General. Mayfeld, get ready to tear them apart with the quad.

Han: Let’s blow this thing and go home.

***ENGINES*************************************************************


	34. The Dark Sabre

### The Dark Sabre

Again, The _Razor Crest_ exited hyperspace on top of something Din had not expected.

He was faced with not one, but _three_ Star Destroyers.

A blinking switch he hadn’t noticed before flashed in the Crest’s console. He flicked it, and the encrypted Pirate signal came to life.

 _“I think they were expecting you.”_ it was Bera’s voice coming out of the speaker _“Get out of here, Mando. The Clan have got this one covered.”_

As the Dog ships exited hyperspace and appeared all around him, the Mando prepared to jump again to a small nearby system. But it was too easy. Din had a sinking feeling. He suspected the real blow had not yet been dealt.

Despite the fact he could no longer be followed, despite the War Dogs covering his retreat, nothing short of a cold-burning dread filled the Mandalorian’s every fibre.

Once more, the Crest came out of lightspeed.

A few seconds later, much to Din’s horror, so did one of the Destroyers. Somehow, they had _followed him through hyperspace_.

As the TIEs came screaming out of the hangar, he knew he was trapped. The TIEs fired, and the Mandalorian was at their mercy. He headed for the nearest moon. It was a desolate rock. Unlike Offmap, there was no life here.

The Crest descended and the TIEs fired again.

Death was coming.

***

The Dark Sabre – the legendary blade.

According to Mandalorian custom, one could only rightfully claim the Dark Sabre if they were Mandalorian and defeated the previous wielder in combat, or it was handed down to them by the rightful owner.

It was created long ago by Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian ever inducted into the Jedi Order. It was the only one of its kind. The Dark Sabre was so respected by the clans, that it had the power to unite them.

Unlike the sabres of the Jedi, thoughts and actions guided the blade's current of power, and it responded to the wielder’s emotions. A powerful emotion like love or hate would make the blade stronger than light sabres could ever hope to be.

***

The Crest crashed. Sort of.

He was able to come in much slower and easier than when he crashed on Offmap, so the Mando was straight on his feet and uninjured this time. However, the Crest was damaged enough that he would not be able to leave.

Whatever was to happen now, Din felt this would be the end of it.

He grabbed his rifle and ran out of the ship, tearing up the nearest ridge in order to gain both high ground and a hiding spot before Gideon and his lackeys arrived. He knew they would not risk blowing him to hell with brute force (because what they really wanted was The Kid) but they would still be coming in hot.

The Troopers started landing their craft to search for him on foot. It was time for the hunt to begin. The lone gunslinger would have to dance his way through the Imps in order to get to the man in black. Patience. Persistence. Each one that fell would bring Gideon closer.

He would start with disintegration…

***

Gideon saw his own men’s lives as worthless and expendable.

He stood back and let his personal guard deal with the Mandalorian. If every one of them fell, it mattered not. If they weakened him for the final blow, it was good enough. Din Djarin was confident. Too confident.

He watched the Mando exhaust his disintegration charges. Run out his flame thrower. Use the last of his whistling birds. Tire himself out fighting with his blaster. With every enemy he took out, the fool weakened himself.

The arrogance and stupidity of the Rebels and Jedi alike is they assume they will endure forever, and yet somehow the Dark Side will be crushed.

That is not the way of the universe. If the Light remains constant, then so does the Dark! How naïve to think that evil men can ever be fully eradicated, when evil exists in _all men_. The Dark Side of the Force will endure for as long as the Force itself.

With the last of his squad falling in the Mandalorian’s slowing wake, Gideon closed quickly.

***

Din saw it. The Dark Sabre.

It was a unique blade. Distinctly Mandalorian – angular and precise. It was a thing of beauty, but it was also an instrument of death and pain.

This weapon had once been the pride of his Creed, but it was now the symbol of their doom.

His doom. Gideon had already closed on him while he had seen to the last Storm Trooper. The Moff swung the sabre sharply upwards, and sliced Din’s blaster clean in half before he could pull the trigger.

Unlike the day with the Akk Dog, he was not afraid. Instead he shook with fury at the insult to his people. So many had fallen by the hands of this monster. Hot tears of anger welled under the helmet _“That doesn’t belong to you! It’s not your right!”_ he shouted.

“When will you learn?” sneered Gideon “That _nothing_ is anyone’s right! There is no natural order to the galaxy. The truth of the matter is, Mando, people like you are weak because you wait for the universe to deliver something to you think you deserve. The Dark Side understands that the people who deserve the power are the ones _willing to seize it_!

Your refusal to pick a side in this fight has cost you. The Mandalore will not commit, and so you have no allies of any real consequence. There will be no friends to save you, because you have never taken the time to make any who have the strength for the task!”

The sabre sparked with power as Gideon’s ire rose.

With only his knife left, he made his last stand as he had with the Mudhorn.

The sabre swung down, and the vibrating blade came up to meet it, but it was no match. With nothing left to do but face certain death like a warrior, Din Djarin stood defiant.

Death was coming.

All the Imp’s hate was behind the sabre, and it crackled menacingly as he swung for the Mando’s head.

The black blade struck its mark.

The beskar cried out its ringing, pained response.

The bounty hunter fell.

Gideon had been right about one thing: there were no friends here to save him now. In the last seconds before the blackness took him, Din Djarin realised how stupid he was to come here alone.

He would die.

Eventually, so would The Kid.

Death was coming.


	35. Part Five: The Good, The Bad, and The Empire (Ch. 35 - The Quick and The Dead)

# Part Five: The Good, The Bad, and The Empire

_“This whole thing is pretty much done. We’re more ghosts than people.”_

_\- Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)._

### The Quick and The Dead

Cara thought she might throw up.

Not in the way she almost did when Tur drank Xi’an’s blood, but in a very more real way. Because it wasn’t a sense of mild disgust that caused the need to vomit today. It was fear for her friend’s life.

Gideon seemed in no hurry to finish playing with his food. Instead of dispatching with the Mandalorian immediately with the sabre, he stood waiting for the shock trooper, his blaster pointed at the dying man.

“Let him go!” demanded Cara as she came down the ramp of the freighter, the angry Wookiee roaring his disgust at the Imp from behind her.

“Or what, Carasynthia?” Gideon taunted “The Mando is dying. Like the rest of his impudent Creed he will soon be nothing more than a memory. You and your _friends_ …” he motioned to the landing _Trivium_ “…will soon be dead too.”

Chewbacca struggled to be heard over the dying engines of the YT, but Gideon could not mistake his message.

“There will be no Endor today, Chewbacca! No lucky chance that can save you now! We will finish what we began!”

It was Cara’s turn to roar “You’ll die!!” Tears were starting to sting her eyes as her best friend’s leg started to twitch. He was dying.

Gideon pointed his second blaster at her. Mayfeld’s appearance on the _Trivium’s_ ramp saw them now in a three-way stand-off.

The Moff continued coldly “Mandalorian. Jedi. Rebel. All who have stood against us have fallen. You people and your petty ambitions. You have no idea what power really is. This is just the beginning!”

As the leg continued to twitch, the Dropper’s tears began to fall.

There was no IG-11 here. No one would save Din Djarin today. They were too late. They had missed their one shot.

The Mandalorian was going to die.

Death was coming.

***

Mayfeld had come to know the mad Pirate well by now, and he could almost feel the craziness radiate off her these days when she got one of her trademark lightning ideas. As Han landed the _Trivium_ , he could hear her brain making as much noise as the engines of the ship.

The Triggerman did not give away to Gideon that anything was amiss as he came out of the ship with his blasters pointed.

The Dropper was shouting, the Wookiee roared, and the Imp was holding them at bay with the threat of finishing the job and blasting a hole through the Mando. With the appearance of Mayfeld in the game, Gideon had taken out his second blaster and pointed it at Cara.

He kept the Moff in his sights but played it cool. He was not about to risk another of his friends getting a fatal blow like they had just witnessed happen to Din as they were landing. He watched as Dune fought back tears for her friend.

Tin Can. He could see the poor bastard still twitching…

The Triggerman knew what _his_ friend was about to do. More than that, he could help her out. But he would have one chance. One shot.

The apex predator’s weakness is the desire to hunt and kill. That means live bait. It’s a two-person job, and you only get one shot.

Fuck up, and draw their attention, and the hunter becomes the prey.

Death was coming.

***

Turhaya was on the hunt.

She slipped out from the escape hatch of the Triv and crept out of sight of her quarry. Quietly, she moved to the position she needed to, her heart hammering furiously in her ears.

While this was a mission of stealth like Din and Cara had faced on the Acclamator, it was also a mission of speed. She remembered the sounds of Mayfeld running his guts out.

The ticking clock had been activated by the fall of the Dark Sabre, and now she was in a race against time. A race against death. Precious seconds that Din could ill afford, slipped by at a sickening speed.

She tried not to look as his leg started twitching.

_‘To honour what you fight for? To respect your life’s work? Yes, I would have let you die.’_

She was now in position. Behind the cover of a large rock, she was within striking distance of her prey. But if she tried to attack Gideon now from this angle, he’d see her and kill them all.

Rusty. She watched him. He wasn’t looking at her, but somehow Tur could see the message written on his face: _‘Ready when you are’_. The Pirate and the Triggerman were about to do a very difficult dance that they had never done together before. There would be no practice. They had to aim straight for perfection. One shot.

Breathe.

Aim.

Fire.

By the narrowest of margins, Mayfeld missed the target.

_Fuck up, and draw their attention, and the hunter becomes the prey._

Gideon swung his blaster from the Mando to the Triggerman, and advanced on Mayfeld in what must have been a blinding desire to kill.

Breathe.

Aim.

The predator struck.

Death was coming.

In the second’s distraction that Mayfeld provided by deliberately missing, she made her move.

The Triggerman would not have penetrated the frontal armour anyway, but by drawing the Moff’s attention to himself, he had given her the one shot _she_ needed to leave her cover unnoticed.

The Imp was taken completely surprise when the retractable spear crashed through his spine and rammed its way out of his chest at full force. She ripped the life from him in the way he deserved, wrenching the spear back and forth like a hound tearing at a carcass.

It was kill of huge importance, but she didn’t drink today.

She couldn’t.

Nearby, the Mandalorian’s foot had stopped twitching.


	36. The Revelation

### The Revelation

Everything was too bright. All he could see was white light through his mostly closed eyes. He had a strange floating feeling. His skin felt strange. His helmet was gone. Then Din realised what was going on.

He must be dead.

He had died a warrior’s death!

If this was the afterlife, why was there so much pain? Had he done that much evil in the world, that he had carried his debts into another life?

And why was the afterlife so wet? 

When most people first realise that they are immersed in a Bacta tank, they’re happy. They have just escaped death.

Not Din Djarin. Abject panic hit him - His helmet was gone. Someone had removed it.

_He was no longer a Mandalorian._

Luckily the tubes down his throat dealt with the wave of vomit his shattered body put forth. For the first time in his life he had no purpose.

_They should have let him die._

There would be no bounty today. No miracle to save him from the crushing weight of the Mudhorn that was pressing its grief on his heart.

Din Djarin wept.

Right when he thought he could die of the pain, he heard footsteps. Despite his fear, despite his pain, despite the fact he promised himself he wouldn’t… when someone knocked on the tank, he opened his eyes.

It was Tur. _She_ must have taken off his helmet. The only person in the galaxy who could. From the smile on her face, he could tell he remained a Mando.

“Sorry!” she shouted to be heard through the tank wall and Bacta fluid “Broke my promise never to touch it, but you know I can’t help trying to make broken things work!” she kissed the tank “I can’t believe you fucked up the Crest again!”

***

***Door opening***

Tur: Make way for the Trivium’s un-departed warrior of the hour…

***Applause. Whooping. Cheering*******************************************************

Mayfeld: Here he is! The man! The Mando!

Cara: Take it easy there, buddy. Let’s sit you down...

Mayfeld: Still got the bucket! You’re tougher than beskar itself, you bad-ass motherfucker. People will write stories about this shit.

***Laughter**********

Tur: _HOLY HONDO!_

***THUMP***

Mayfeld: Fuck! You right there, skrag? Scared the shit out of me….

Tur: I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier!

Din: Lightning idea?

Tur: Can I please show them?... _The journal?_

***Silence**********************

Din: It’s not breaking the rules

Tur: Yes!

***Running. Door opening*****

Mayfeld: Crazy Pirate! How you feeling there anyway, pal?

Din: Like shit.

Cara: You were out a long time. Last time we saw you, you were dying on the ground. Come to think of it, you’ve got to stop doing that… lying on the ground… dying…

Mayfeld: Tur wouldn’t let us near the med bay, let alone the Bacta tank, and she kept _that_ covered in a drop sheet the whole time. That ink-headed nutcase would tear down a _thousand_ Destroyers for you.

Cara: Hey! I never asked you what that was like - taking down the Destroyer?

Mayfeld: I can’t even begin to describe what a rush that was! Even fearing for Tin Can’s life, part of me couldn’t help but enjoy it. Those two Corellians? They fucked that thing up in a way I’ve never seen before.

Din: You sound impressed?

Mayfeld: One hundred percent. I tell you what though, she’s got a thing for the General! I’d watch your wife, Mando – Solo could give you some competition.

Cara: Ha! That’s going to be some new ink.

Mayfeld: She’s probably listening to audio recording right now…

***Unintelligible noises. Laughter***************************************

Cara: Mayfeld! That’s revolting!

***Laughter. Door opening. Footsteps*******

Tur: Here it is! Are you ready?

***Thump***

Mayfeld: What is _that?_ And why do you look like you’re about to blow something up?

***Slap***

Mayfeld: Ow!

Tur: I’m about to blow up that tiny brain of yours, asshole.

Cara: Is that _book_ made of _real paper_?

Tur: Yeah! Did you know paper is made from wood? Weird, huh? Its bits of stuff I’ve been writing and drawing since I found Bucket Brain in the _first_ Crest wreck. Some ship transcripts, and other bits too…

Cara: That’s so archaic, it’s actually cool. 

***Pages turning*****

Mayfeld: I’ve never even seen you with this book thing before.

Tur: I like to write in private, you nosy fucker. Never intended anyone to read it.

***Pages turning***********

Tur: Here it is! I like this sketch the best. Captures his... _fire._

Cara: _No way!!!_

***Book being snatched***

Mayfeld: _That’s YOU?!_ You annoyingly good-looking bastard!

Tur: He’s disgustingly perfect.

Cara: Din Djarin!!! _Is this really what you look like under there???!!!_

Din: It’s a reasonably accurate likeness.

***Unintelligible. Whooping. Whistling. Laughter************************

Cara: I can’t believe I finally get to know what you _look like!_

Din: And you haven’t seen my face. Just lines on a page.

Tur: Well, enjoy reading… Let’s go, Beskar…

***Sounds of movement. Footsteps retreating*****

Mayfeld: _Captain’s quarters a_ _lready_? He’s going to wind up back in the tank! I got twenty credits he does an injury within the first five minutes.

Cara: Twenty credits? You’re on.

Din: If you must listen to _Razor Crest Radio,_ Mayfeld _,_ mute your end. Your heavy breathing and little bitch tears might put me off my food.

***Noises of disgust. Raucous laughter****************

Mayfeld: You’re clearly back to normal. Get out of here, you dirty Wampa, and go eat your Tauntaun!

***Chuckling. Footsteps retreating. Door closing. Pages turning*******

Mayfeld: Look at this stuff! These pictures… All of it is total madness…

Cara: It’s _all_ in here, too… The Akk Dog, the jailbreak, the children… I can finally find out what you and Tur talked about when you were building that bomb.

Mayfeld: Yeah, I remember that day. It’s funny… at the time it was terrible, but now I look back on it and it makes me laugh for some reason.

Cara: Family will do that to you. Turn your life upside down.

Mayfeld: Upside down? It’s like being trapped with Inky in a ship when she’s in the mood to barrel roll. But it’s a good madness. In a way, I like it mad.

Cara: Now you’re talking in riddles.

Mayfeld: The more shit I go through, the happier I am about it. Every time I stare death in the face, I come out of it feeling more alive.

Cara: You’re an adventurer, Mayfeld. Like the rest of us, you’d rather sail the most dangerous seas, than stagnate like a swamp.

Mayfeld: Wouldn’t have thought any of this was possible before you sprung me from jail, Princess.

Cara: Look at all the things Din thought were impossible but happened because he stayed the course. He once said to me ‘Sometimes with all the shit people like us go through, I think we deserve to get lucky more than most.’

Mayfeld: Sometimes it’s not a matter of luck, it’s about being able to see the opportunities in front of your face.

***Silence*******

Cara: Speaking of opportunity...

Mayfeld: _‘Round two’?_ Ring the bell, Princess…

***Sounds of movement. Footsteps retreating. Door closing***


	37. The Legend

###  The Legend

Tur lay against the Mando’s chest as he slept. The pelts on the cabin bed were warm and familiar as she dozed and listened to his steady breathing. Heart still beating. Still alive.

It had been a close call on the desolate moon.

Tur ordered Chewie to rush Din to the Triv’s Bacta tank, and told the Wookiee to throw him in helmet and all… and leave the med bay. While she worked alone to save the Mando’s life, the rest of them waited.

Her brother picked up the damaged Crest. Bera was well on the way to Offmap by the time she emerged wearily to announce that (once again) Din Djarin had narrowly escaped death.

While the _Trivium_ began a slow, evasive and careful journey home, Han and Chewie went on their way. By the time Din was out of the tank, the Clan had (once again) repaired the _Razor Crest_ and departed Offmap.

After a journey that seemed to take forever, she was finally home. The only residents on the small moon now were the Mudhorn crew - the family in the wooden cabin, and the two soldiers in the junk hotel.

***

They were back where they first met - the kitchen.

To Din, it seemed very much like the start of their tale, talking of his plans to leave Offmap to continue his quest. Discussing the fate of the kid. Thankfully, he no longer felt the urge to draw his blaster on her (at least not the one in his holster).

“I have something for you.” Tur held out an old-fashioned paper letter to him “It’s from Han.”

“Paper letter? You must have made quite an impression on the General.”

She laughed “He said he couldn’t afford the information to be intercepted.”

***

_Mando,_

_We didn’t want to say anything to your crew before we faced off with the Empire, in case they were taken and were forced to talk. Believe me, the Imps have ways of getting information out of people when they want to._

_I’ll get straight to the point - Chewbacca recognised your Kid. Well, he said he knew someone of the same species as your kid at least. Master Yoda, the great Jedi Knight. I’d never met the guy, so I didn’t really know what he looked like, but Chewie says your Kid’s a dead ringer for him._

_Yoda fought in the Clone Wars and taught old Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker. Chewie said he was friends with the Wookiees, but doesn’t know what species he is, or which planet he was originally from. He never asked, and Yoda never told him. But we know Luke went to train with him on Dagobah. _

_From what I can gather, it wasn’t the home world, so don’t get too excited. He must have lived there once. I’m sure Luke might know more, but no one knows where he is either. I know it’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got. Sorry._

_The Acclamator, the hell machine, and the Dark Sabre? I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this. We may have uneasy alliances now, but the day will come where we need to fight together. The Rebellion will prepare itself. Everyone needs to prepare. Use the Dark Sabre to reunite your people before it’s too late and they are destroyed._

_Your path is going to be as important as any. If the baby is what Chewie says he is, he could grow to be one of the most powerful Jedi in history. Don’t let him walk the Dark path! Believe me when I say that he could be the doom of us all, and it will probably tear your heart out as a father to see him turn._

_Keep walking your Way and teach the kid right._

_May the Force be with you all,_

_Han._

***

Din sat in thoughtful silence for a while. When he looked at Tur, he could tell by her deviant expression she had used the opportunity to stare at him and let her mind wander. It made him smile, despite the gravity of what he was about to say.

He glanced back down at the letter in his hands and gathered himself “We’re all still in incredible danger. In fact, it looks like this is just the beginning of something much bigger. We’ve incurred the full wrath of the underground Empire. Covert is still scattered. We don’t know what The Kid is, and I’m no closer to getting him home.”

Tur reasoned “Sure, but you’ve picked up some allies. The stakes may be big, but so is your own arsenal now.”

He thought about that for a moment, then said tentatively _“Aanor ishiia zals…”_

“Yes - _Love conquers all._ ”

***

It was silent by the campfire.

The Mandalorian felt the four friends didn’t need words anyway. They had discussed at length what needed to be done, and it was time for them to go their separate ways.

Cara had explained to him that she was going on a mostly diplomatic mission to contact the old Rebellion (the crazy Pirate, the Ex-Imp, and the wanted Mando were far less suited to the task). There were leads that needed following up concerning the kid, and they needed to spread the word about the looming threat of the underground Empire.

The Dogs and the Triggerman would try to solve the riddle of the hell machine and obtain details of what the Empire was plotting. Their aim was to steal as much data as possible. Surprise them, crush them, and make a quick exit – the Pirate way.

Tur was going to take the Dark Sabre and try and find the remaining members of his covert. They would be offered permanent sanctuary on Offmap. She was to locate two key assets: The Armourer, and the only member of the sabre’s house that he knew of, Paz Vizsla.

Din Djarin himself was back on his original quest – The Kid. He and his foundling son would take the Crest in search of both fate and the past again.

Although Solo considered his contribution on the subject to be insignificant, much could be taken from it.

If Master Yoda was instrumental in the Clone Wars, there may be old republic records somewhere of him. There may even be Mandalorians who may have information passed down from Bo-Katan Kryze (who wielded the Dark Sabre herself and fought alongside Obi Wan Kenobi). Since Chewbacca had been with Yoda on Kashyyyk, there may be other Wookiees there who had known the Jedi Master. They also had Dagobah as another clue, and if anyone found Luke Skywalker….

It was said that the Jedi could use the Force to reach beyond the grave. Din had a hard time accepting this, but his wife believed that gods were often born of man, just as the gods made men themselves. If Skywalker could communicate with Yoda, they may get all their answers at once.

They were back at the start. They were not at the start at all. Maybe it was a circle? Mayfeld would have called it riddle talk and asked him if he’d been at the mushrooms again.

The circumstances they would find themselves in were very much the same as they had been in before, but they themselves were all very different.

Din thought maybe they hadn’t changed, so much as grown _._

***

The truth about gunslingers is we never want them to find ‘happily ever after’, even when we want them to find happiness.

The nameless, faceless anti-hero, who walks into the sunset day after day. Ceaseless. Relentless. Ever vigilant. Tortured, yet somehow at peace. Driven, yet oddly contented. Alone, yet always adored.

For the gunslinger, the dreary captivity of retirement holds no pleasure at all, and a predator who cannot hunt will starve and die. For us, the idea that their tale will end holds no pleasure either.

We want them to burn forever, bringing light and hope to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

We want them to take their place among the gods who are born in the bloody tales of men.

We want them to become legends _._

***

_“And those were the words that Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea on the wings of the wind: ‘Out of the Great Sea to Middle-Earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.’”_

_– The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)_

***

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